Thobeka Duma is a registered paediatric nurse from the Port Shepstone Regional Hospital, KwaZulu-Natal Province with 10 years’ experience working in the neonatal ICU.  She was born in Munster, Port Shepstone and currently lives in Amanzimtoti, Durban. Thobeka graduated from the University of Zululand with a BCur in 2007. She further studied at North West University and completed her Advance Diploma in Health Service Management in 2012. In 2014, she was awarded the Marjorie McIntosh Scholarship to complete her Post-Graduate Diploma in Critical Care Child Nursing at the University of Cape Town.  Recently she completed her Master of Nursing in Child Nursing (MNCN) at UCT, this time with a ResMed SleepNet Bursary, which supports the development of advanced paediatric respiratory support and care. 

Thobeka believes that the MNCN course has broadened her career horizons as an Advanced Practice Nurse. Thobeka has always been passionate about neonates, but through her experiences of this course, she has a newfound interest in the field of paediatrics and plans on exploring this when returning to her setting of KwaZulu-Natal. As part of the programme she developed an evidence based practice protocol for the use of high-flow oxygen as a supportive intervention at local district hospital level.

According to Thobeka, the MNCN course had plenty of valuable learning experiences, particularly when she was able to compare the Red Cross Children’s Hospital setting to that of other health systems in South Africa and other countries. Through this comparison, Thobeka will be taking away the valuable lesson of patient- and family-centered care.

As a self-described transformational leader, Thobeka believes in the importance of getting buy-in from all stakeholders before any practice change can be enacted – particularly from those stakeholders on the ground in healthcare settings. She hopes to utilise this knowledge if she goes into the Kwazulu Natal district hospital setting so that she may aid in supporting and strengthening the healthcare system.