Dr Janet Titchener says it is time for the Hawke's Bay District Health Board to realise it is missing an opportunity to "expand" and "upskill" diabetic care in the region after funding was cut for her highly praised service.
After finishing her undergraduate training at the University of Otago, Dr Titchener completed a Masters in Experimental Psychology in the United States. It was in a Philadelphia hospital 15 years ago where she realised to truly be able to help someone overcome their limitations, she needed to understand the whole person not just the medical diagnoses.
"I was doing paediatrics at the time and an emergency room physician admitted a child who was suffering from diabetes. He called me down to help treat her and was very angry at the parents because this was the eighth admission in just two months.
"But I said to him 'maybe it is not the parents' fault maybe it is us who are the problem?
"The family was illiterate and could only speak Spanish, but yet here we were giving them all these pamphlets about how to manage and treat diabetes. It was my first realisation that health care didn't really fit everyone that come through the doors - We were prescribing people a lifestyle that didn't fit her culture."