No thanks to big diabetes offer

The Ministry of Health has rejected a proposal from the Danish Novo Nordisk Foundation, which has offered to build a diabetes centre in the Faroes.

The decision comes as a big surprise to the Faroese Diabetes Association, which has not been informed of the offer.

It recently emerged that the Novo Nordisk Foundation is preparing to build a centre for diabetes and other lifestyle diseases in Greenland. This project is a collaboration between the Greenlandic government and the Danish foundation, which in the past year has earmarked a total of DKK 6 billion to build so-called Steno Diabetes centres across the Danish kingdom.

Only a few days before the news of the Greenland centre broke, the Novo Nordisk Foundation received a letter from the Faroese health ministry, which turned down the offer to build such a centre in the Faroes. The letter contained no reasons for the rejection.

Jannik Hilsted, the Chief Medical Officer at the Novo Nordisk Foundation, who is currently in Greenland finalising the deal to build a diabetes centre there, confirms that the foundation has been in contact with the Faroese health authorities regarding plans to build a similar centre in the Faroes.

When asked about the contents of the letter from the Faroese authorities and what will happen now, Hilsted says the answer lies with the Faroese health authorities.

Although reluctant to comment further on the matter, he concedes that the plans for a collaboration on a diabetes centre in the Faroes have ground to a halt, for now at least.

All this comes as a great surprise to the Faroese Diabetes Association. Chairwoman Maybritt Skoradal says that a diabetes centre could be a potential lifesaver to the 3,000-4,000 diabetes patients in the Faroes.

“Whatever the health ministry’s reason is for turning down such a great offer, it had better be good,” she says. “I find it very strange that the Diabetes Association has not been informed of this matter.”

Translated by prosa.fo