SA JOURNAL OF DIABETES & VASCULAR DISEASE
VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2011
27
Diabetes Personality
S Afr J Diabetes Dis 2011;
8
: 27–28.
A PASSION FOR PEOPLE
P
ort Elizabeth-based diabetes nurse educator, Sr
Hannie Williams, believes that you cannot be
a good nurse if you do not have a passion for
people. She therefore makes her patients – and their
individuality – central to her work.
A registered nurse, Hannie got into the diabetes
arena in 2004. She and her husband had moved to
Port Elizabeth in 2001 and she’d temporarily left the
profession to help him out in his business. But she
really missed nursing and wanted to get back into the
field. So, in 2004 she started sending out her CV to
local medical practices, and even went so far as to
circulate flyers. It was on the strength of one of the
latter that Dr Gracjan Podgorski, a specialist physician
with a particular interest in diabetes, contacted her.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
In the intervening years, Dr Podgorski has men-
tored and encouraged her, something for which she
is deeply grateful. ‘He is a master in his field and has
opened so many doors for me, not least giving me
access to sponsorships that allowed me to attend
several local, national and international meetings. In
addition, he constantly shares his own knowledge
with me. I owe him a great deal and consider it a real
privilege to work with him.’
Hannie feels that as an educator, her primary pur-
pose is to communicate the practicalities of diabetes
to her patients so that they are empowered with use-
ful knowledge. ‘Once they understand the physiology,
they need to know the “what, where and how” of their
treatment, be it oral antidiabetic agents, insulin or
both. Given the central role that the funding indus-
try plays, I also help them with the practicalities of
dealing with medical aids, so that they can get their
medication from the ‘chronic’ funding and hopefully
eliminate co-payments. It’s an ongoing challenge too,
given the restrictive formularies, to help patients com-
ply with those formularies when changing treatments.
This results in lots of time spent writing motivations to
medical aids.’
Of course, much emotional support is also required.
‘First and foremost, patients are individuals, and the
major worries and concerns differ from patient to
patient. Inevitably there’s a burning question in the
patient’s mind – “Will I go blind?” or “Will I lose my
toes?” – and it’s crucial to address this first, because
if you don’t, the odds are they won’t take in anything
else you tell them. It’s also important not to overload
them with too much information. It’s been shown that
people remember at most 40% of what they hear on
any one occasion. It’s therefore necessary to repeat
the information at follow-up visits.’
Hannie’s passion for people means that she wants
to assist her patients in ways that produce quick re-
sults. ‘I often refer to it as giving them a “kiss-it-better
bandage”’, she laughs. ‘When consulting a patient for
the first time, I don’t have a magic wand to make all
“wrongs” right. I can, however, give of myself by lis-
tening to him/her, addressing his/her concerns and
helping him/her make sense of what’s happening. At
the end of such a session, it leaves me feeling hum-
ble, but with a great sense of satisfaction, if I see that
Educating a gestational diabetic patient.
