Students were more than willing to ‘model’ their footwear – scuffed, trendy and glittering – for their diabetes nurse specialist Kirsty Newton’s down-to-earth advice website
Aimed at young Wellingtonians, the website has only been live for a couple of months but is already getting hits from smartphones across the country and the world from people checking out pithy advice on dealing with the “diabetes police”, exercising safely and how to tell your date about your syringe supply.
Diabetes Live is the brainchild of Newton, an adolescent and young adult specialist for Capital & Coast DHB’s diabetes service. She was aware the service had some issues with transitioning young people with type 1 diabetes from three-monthly specialist teen clinics to the less frequent young adult clinics.
Moving from the frequent teen clinics (aimed at 13 to 16-year-olds and attended by their diabetes doctor, nurse and dietitian) to the infrequent young adult clinics with the specialist only (aimed at 17 to 25-year-olds) means young people have to head to their GP or local youth health service for prescriptions between clinics, take themselves to labs for blood and urine tests.
With her master’s degree already under her belt Newton took on a new research project to develop a transition model for the DHB’s young adult clients.
That research brought home that young people in transition did want and need educational material on managing their diabetes but if you gave it to them in an old-fashioned pamphlet form it was likely to be “biffed” soon after.
So the idea for the website was born, and with a shoestring budget of $500 for its web architect and dedicated young web designer student (who doesn’t have diabetes) and many months’ work by Newton writing and sourcing the material, the website www.diabeteslive.co.nz finally went live this winter.
Along with covering information specific to Capital & Coast clients it covers a host of material on everything from diabetes burnout to advice on alcohol along with information on everyday testing, correcting and injecting insulin in straightforward but non-patronising language.
Still a work in progress with more material to add, Newton is keen to keep the website topical and her next project is to have a Facebook connection to encourage people to be interactive or share their own advice on dealing with the ‘diabetes police’ who give you dirty looks as you bite into a scrumptious piece of chocolate cake …
