Ignorance about our condition is putting diabetics’ lives at risk

‘Hypo’ – a short film currently doing the rounds of the festival circuit – dramatises many of the struggles we face, writes James Moore

We type 1s have no insulin-producing cells in our pancreases, so have to inject it, and regularly prick our fingers to test our blood sugar levels (iStock)

Hypo – a short film currently doing the rounds of the festival circuit – dramatises the real-life experience of footballer-turned-actor Jonsel Gourkan, a type 1 diabetic who plays himself.

We see him butting heads with his manager and being told to knuckle down by his agent. The morning before game day, he wakes up late, and with low blood sugar, or hypoglycaemia.

People who have or know people with the condition: you can probably make a good guess about how it progresses from there.

The film wraps with real-life footage of Gourkan experiencing a hypo. If you were unaware of his condition, you might think he was drunk.

We type 1s have no insulin-producing cells in our pancreases (thought to be as a result of our funky immune systems knocking them out), so have to inject it, and regularly prick our fingers to test our blood sugar levels, too. When it gets too low, our brains and bodies are starved of energy. That being the case, Gourkan’s behaviour on film shouldn’t come as too great a surprise.

I’d recommend showing it to people who have family members or loved ones who might think the diabetic in their life is just being awkward or bad-tempered when their sugar levels head south.

The film rang true to me, not just because I’ve experienced low blood sugar myself, but because I’ve experienced the way ignorance about the condition can hurt people who have it – albeit in my case, without the salty language Gourkan was subjected to.

I interviewed for a number of postgraduate journalism courses after finishing my degree. At one of them, I was held back by the person running the course. This must be good news, thought I, only to be taken into an office and asked whether I thought I would be able to cope with the demands of the course, having declared my condition on the application form (a schoolboy error, I know).

Of course, said I, before recounting my schedule, which was fairly busy at the time.

“Ah, but this is different,” the tutor said. “It’s full-on, the hours are the same as having a job.”

I ought to have got stroppy at that point. I ought to have asked whether he was saying my condition would disqualify me from working full stop. I ought to have pointed out that type 1 didn’t stop Gary Mabbutt playing for Spurs and England at the time. Was he, by implication, saying the course was more demanding than that?

But I was so nonplussed by the nature of the questioning, which was calmly implacable, that no really good answers came to mind beyond of course I can manage, I’ll be fine, can we please, please move on?

Needless to say, I didn’t get an offer. I didn’t think much more about it at the time because the ignorance I experienced wasn’t evident at City University in London, which was the course I wanted and where I ultimately went. Nor have I experienced anything like it during my time working at actual jobs on various regional and national publications (I’ve been around). Looking back, however, I think I too easily let it pass. I really wished I’d have challenged the interviewer (as Gourkan did his manager, although it didn’t get him very far).

Ignorance about the condition is still pervasive and it is still causing problems for people with it, as Hypo demonstrates.

Short films can struggle to get seen by people who aren’t professional critics and/or can’t get to film festivals. I hope this one manages to find an audience, because it’s not just relevant to diabetes – it encapsulates the struggles faced by people with a wide range of conditions and disabilities. Having acquired new and exciting impairments through getting run over by a truck, I’ve spoken to a lot of them, heard a lot of their stories. They usually share common elements with Gourkan’s and/or mine.

Britain is supposed to have legislation to prevent this sort of thing, but it’s nowhere near strong enough, which is why there’s a yawning gap between the employment rates for people with and without disabilities. The government used to pretend it wanted to address the situation. These days, it’s hardly even bothering to do that.