Doctor's Extra Mile for Local Girl with "First in Canada" Diabetes Treatment

Sacha Cardinal, a 17-year-old girl from Alfred, had her world turned upside down in 2020 when, after living with type 1 diabetes for almost 15 years she developed an allergy to insulin. 

Her predicament was taken a step further when none of the alternative treatments seemed to work, leading Sacha to spend 4 months in the hospital receiving insulin intravenously.

Dr. Alexandra Ahmet, Sacha's endocrinologist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, worked tirelessly to find a viable solution and as it would turn out, the solution was proposed by one of CHEO's diabetes educators early on in the process.

The experience of this diabetes nurse was vital as the way Sacha's body was reacting to insulin wasn't an issue that was just stumping Dr. Ahmet and the staff at CHEO, but was a problem that even a national group of endocrinologists had never seen before. 

Along with a dedicated team in CHEO, Dr. Ahmet contacted "Roche", a Swiss company that was providing an apparatus that would bypass the layer of skin and fat that was reacting to the insulin, and deliver the much needed medication straight into the abdominal cavity.  However, the issue was that this procedure was only being used in Europe and, after months of paper work and red tape, providing proof that every other possible solution had been tested, Health Canada finally approved the use of the treatment on Sacha under the "Special Access Program."

Thanks to funding from Roche (who not only flew over a surgeon from Germany, but have also covered all the costs for the procedure, maintenance of the equipment and medication for 12 months) and the hard work from Dr. Ahmet and her team, Sacha Cardinal was able to leave hospital just in time to graduate from high school and attend her prom.