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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