National Diabetes Week shines a light on the conversation around diabetes and provides the opportunity to help reduce the stigma and discrimination that people living with diabetes face every day.
If you haven’t already, visit our Diabetes Education team this week in our health promotion areas of Monash Medical Centre and Dandenong Hospital, between 10 am to 12 pm daily. They are available to discuss the steps we can all take to help reduce diabetes-related stigma and provide support materials to help change how we have conversations about diabetes.
According to Diabetes Australia, 700,000 people living with diabetes have experienced mental or emotional challenges in the past 12 months. It is often considered a silent complication and is not talked about.
Michelle Gribble, Nurse Manager of the Diabetes Unit and Diabetes Educator, highlights the ongoing importance of reducing stigma to remove the blame and shame that people with diabetes feel.
“Mental illness is one of the most common diabetes complications. However, it is also one of the least known. It is important that our conversation evolves and the language we use when discussing diabetes is positive,” she says.
“We often get caught up with other priorities, and therefore don’t take the time to acknowledge how our language and how we converse can affect people living with diabetes,” she continues.
As healthcare professionals, we can start to take small steps to:
- Provide better awareness of diabetes mental health issues and help people with diabetes feel more confident to seek support
- Put mental health support at the centre of regular diabetes healthcare, and recognise the mental health impacts
- Speak up and call out diabetes-related stigma and discrimination wherever it happens
For more information or to learn more about the programs the Monash Health Diabetes team has available to ensure our patients receive the ongoing care they need.
Approved by: Jenny Wong