A northern Tasmania nurse has received funding from the Foundation for Young Australians to develop better supports for young people with type 1 diabetes.
Will Egan’s Type Fun Diabetes project will provide health education and role models for young diabetics and challenge misconceptions about the condition among healthcare professionals.
Mr Egan, who was three years old when he was diagnosed with diabetes, knows how frustrating it can be to manage.
“I’d had enough of diabetes, I think, when I was about 16 or 17,” he said.
“I was over the whole finger pricks and needles, it’s just such a drain to consistently do that.”
Mr Egan often sees young people who have given up on managing their diabetes and are suffering serious health effects.
“People just get sick of it and they either stop, or they don’t check as often as they should have, or they don’t do their insulin as much as they should,” he said.
“People come in really sick and that has to be managed in the hospital setting, which is not where we want anyone to be.
“It’s really confronting for me as a diabetic, to see people like that and seeing a small reflection of myself.
We can show (young people) that diabetes isn’t the end, this is just the beginning of all the great things that they’re going to achieve.
Will Egan acute care nurse
“I see these people, that if they chose a different way of going about managing their chronic disease, they could have different outcomes.”
The potential complications of diabetes include heart attacks, vision loss, amputations, kidney damage and depression.
Mr Egan is establishing his Type Fun Diabetes project so diabetics aged 16 to 21 can connect and share information about managing the condition.
“Because everybody has valuable stories, everybody has little tricks of the trade that they can use, and I’ve always found that information very valuable,” he said.
“I want people to get the information and then make the choices to do something about it, to go out there and be successful and manage their diabetes.”
Mr Egan also wants to introduce them to high-achieving people with the condition and to change the way health professionals think about the diabetes.
“It’s very easy to get into the train of thought that diabetes is just an illness, or just a set of numbers, when really we’re dealing with people,” he said.
His ultimate aim is to help young diabetics and the wider community to think positively about the condition.
“A program aimed at showing young people with type 1 diabetes that this chronic condition is not a hindrance on their greatness,” he said.
“We can show them that diabetes isn’t the end, this is just the beginning of all the great things that they’re going to achieve.”
Connection key to countering diabetes distress
Diabetes educator Andrea Radford backed up Mr Egan’s observations of the frustration young diabetics can experience.
She said there was even a diagnosed condition called diabetes distress.
If they don’t feel they have a voice, then they’re terribly isolated, so they do experience real distress when it comes to managing their diabetes.
Andrea Radford diabetes educator
“You do get some very broken [blood glucose] monitors turn up, where somebody says I just threw it, I did not like the number and I’m sick of it and I threw the monitor at the wall, or I stomped on the monitor and I want a new one please,” she said.
Ms Radford agreed that workers in other parts of the health system could have mistaken beliefs about diabetes and its management.
“Most people in the health profession don’t have really sophisticated knowledge around type 1 diabetes, and yet our young people living with diabetes have really clever, good skills,” she said.
“Young people actually in that transition phase really fall out of care very easily, and that’s really a big concern from our point of view.”
She has applauded the aims of the Type Fun Diabetes project.
“Absolutely, role modelling in any chronic health condition is really vital,” Ms Radford said.
“The only people that … they feel really understand their diabetes, and quite rightly so, are other young people that are living with diabetes, but if they’re not connected to those young people, if they don’t feel they have a voice, then they’re terribly isolated, so they do experience real distress when it comes to managing their diabetes.”
Diabetes a growing problem
About 10 per cent of Australia’s 1.7 million diabetics have type 1 diabetes and its prevalence is increasing.
There are nearly 3,000 type 1 diabetics in Tasmania.
The local government areas with the highest prevalence are Flinders Island, Waratah-Wynyard, Glamorgan Spring Bay, Tasman, Break O’Day, Derwent Valley, Glenorchy and Burnie.
Tasmanian endocrinologists recently told a State Government inquiry into preventative health care that a shortage of endocrinologists in northern and north-west Tasmania was making it difficult for sufferers to access treatment.
Tasmanian Health Minister Michael Ferguson said the situation would be addressed under the State Government’s health system reform process.