VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2014
131
SA JOURNAL OF DIABETES & VASCULAR DISEASE
Diabetes Personality
Making a difference, one patient
at a time
S Afr J Diabetes Vasc Dis
2014;
11
: 131–132
S
r Hester Davel, a diabetes nurse educator at
the Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology
(CDE) in Houghton, Johannesburg, has been
involved in diabetes education for 18 years. Her in-
terest in chronic disease, and diabetes in particular,
began when she was working in a medical ward
and encountered a young boy with type 1 diabetes.
‘The other staff made sure he didn’t have access to
sweets. At night, however, he used to steal sweets
from other patients while they were asleep, and
the next day his diabetes would be uncontrolled.
When I asked him why he did it, his answer was
that because his own sweets were always taken
away, “Nobody gives me a choice”.’
Hester has a particular interest in type 1 diabe-
tes patients, especially children, and much of her
work has focused on them. ‘They tend to feel that
no one understands them. Often they feel deprived
of things, like sweets, that other children take for
granted. This makes them naturally rebellious.’ She
recalls being something of a rebel herself as a child
and is therefore able to relate.
Type 1 diabetes is hard work and as that boy
said, these young people are not given any choice
in the matter. It requires a demanding regimen of
constant testing and injecting, and patients don’t
have the option to say, ‘I don’t want this!’ Hester
feels that her job as an educator is to walk the dia-
betes road beside her patients, not ahead of them
or behind them. ‘It’s important to listen to them
and hear what they want me to hear. I need to un-
derstand them in order to help them live well with
diabetes. It’s not about me being prescriptive and
dictating what I think is good for them, without re-
gard for their feelings.’
So she works with patients to set goals that are
their own, rather than hers, and then facilitates their
making the difference in their lives that they want
for themselves. This is what she means by walking
beside them. ‘If you walk ahead of your patient, it
means you’re more interested in yourself than him/
her and more focused on what you think they need
to know and do. When you walk behind the patient,
it means you’re not engaged enough and while
you might listen to them, you don’t interact actively
enough to help them effect the changes they might
need to make.’
Along with paediatric endocrinologist, Dr David
Segal, Hester was the driving force behind the es-
tablishment of regular camps for young diabetes
patients. The first one took place in 2005. ‘I felt like
I was fulfilling my purpose on earth, because I had
always wanted to create a space for children with di-
abetes where they could play, laugh, sing, paint and
just have fun and be creative; a place where they
would not feel deprived in any way, and where they
would experience unconditional love and a sense of
complete safety.’ While not in the form of camps, she
is also currently focusing on creating an environment
of safety and understanding for those living with dia-
betes, family members, siblings and caretakers from
all walks of life.
Hester considers it a gift to be a diabetes nurse
educator and often uses the ‘starfish’ fable to ex-
plain this. ‘A little boy, who was walking along the
shore, picking up beached starfishes and throwing
them back in the sea, was stopped by a man who
asked him why he was doing this as he couldn’t
save them all. The boy replied as he flung yet an-
other starfish back into the water, “I’ve made a
