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M U T

S P I R I T

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

Sister Nontando Duma reflects on a nearly 50-year journey

as a nurse and educator

Sister Nothando Duma

Nontando Duma, who was born in Inanda near

Durban, spent almost half a century of her adult life as

a nurse, working in six hospitals and teaching at MUT

in its technikon days. She worked as a nurse from

1969 to 2016, doing her formative training at Durban’s

McCord Hospital where she studied General Nursing.

She then went to King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban

where she studied Midwifery, and proceeded to do a

nursing degree at UNISA.

From a very early stage in her life, Nontando was

attracted to the professional look of nursing. “I

chose nursing because I had passion for it. I was

also motivated by the attitude and behaviour of

nurses during the 1960s when nurses were highly

professional, and their behaviour and mannerisms

spoke volumes about the profession,” said Nontando.

During the apartheid years, the scope of work was

very limited for black people. Only teaching, the

police force, the army, nursing and a few other

professions were available to them. For women, the

scope was even narrower. Fortunately for Nontando,

she preferred nursing and never regretted it. “Once a

nurse always a nurse. I loved dealing with the needy,

vulnerable, children and elderly people, especially in

the community.”

Nontando said the highlight of her career was when

she was a senior nurse. “That was the time when I had

to focus on the end results rather than on procedures.

Emphasis was on creativity and flexibility, rather than

on uniformity,” she said. As a manager, Nontando had

to promote ethical responsibilities and moral issues

in health care with emphasis on disease prevention

through health education. She also had to explain

legal aspects and regulations in the health service, and

how to use the resources at their disposal. “As part of

resource management we had to have a good grasp

of the methods of financial services in health care, as

well as the theories of micro and macro-economics,”

said Nontando.

This was a time when everything in the country

had the potential to become a political mine field.

Nontando understood this, and applied the necessary

diplomacy. She said nurses, like everybody else, had

to be aware of who was wielding power, and how they

had to deal with the situation. “We had to be sensitive

to the use of power, understand who had it and who

did not, and how power or influence was acquired and

lost, and when to use it and not to use it.”

Highlighting the varied responsibilities of nurses

in a society, Nontando said they are educators of

health personnel and health consumers, and are

also counsellors – helping clients to choose viable

solutions to health problems by assisting them to take

informed decisions. She also said that nurses have

to play a leadership role, explaining that: “Nurses are

role models where they consciously or unconsciously

demonstrate behaviour to others who will perform a

similar role. Nurses practise an advocacy role based

on the principle of humanity. This is based on the

principle that clients are unique, and will therefore

have a unique relationship with the nurse.”

From 1993 to 1998 Nontando taught nursing at MUT

while it was still a technikon. She was a senior lecturer,

and acted as head of the department. She said some

of her students went on to hold senior positions in the

nursing profession. She also worked in the UK where

she got “satisfaction from working with different