.............If you haven't had an acknowledgement, worth using "Contact Us" email to ask why not?.........
Hi Copepod - Yes maybe!
However, I'm not certain that I'm that keen to start chasing after organisations that do not have systems in place to at least send out formal acknowledgements - if only as a matter of courtesy - to people that offer their services free of charge. Personally, I consider that I have better things to do with what time I have left in this life.
By the way, I ticked all the boxes "signing up" to help in any way that I could. I certainly didn't just sign up for email newsletters. In any case, I haven't received an email newsletter either.
As regards whether or not Diabetes Research Network is a fund-raising body, I'm fairly certain that if we looked at it closely we would find that they will be receiving very large funding from somewhere even if they aren't receiving it directly from us diabetics as Diabetes UK do.
These days, I keep driving away from high-powered diabetes-related meetings at the local hospital and trying to work out in my mind why the healthcare professionals that I meet seem to have so many problems. Most often, they blame these problems on the managers of the local Primary Care Trust. They say that these managers almost totally ignore diabetes dilemmas that are ongoing in the hospital. Moreover, the same PCT managers continually fail to attend meetings that they are supposed to be present at. Moreover, they treat requests to attend these meetings with healthcare professionals seemingly with total disdain.
Most of the time, I come to the conclusion that these healthcare professionals and managers aren't really that bothered about solving the growing problems of diabetes. I consider that they are more interested in maintaining their own employment status and building empires to enhance their status - and of course making this year's healthcare budget stretch as far as they can simply to get them to the financial year end.
What happens to diabetics in the longer term doesn't really come into the equation because a lot of these people aren't likely to be in the same job next year or the year after. Usually, they will have moved on - usually through promotion to an even better-paid job. Certainly, I wouldn't expect to learn that any of them have been given the sack. The problem then becomes someone else's and will become next year's budget for the beancounters to mismanage.
It really is a major dilemma!
Best wishes - John
