Introducing Kathy Knight, clinical diabetes specialist - Waikato

Kathy Knight (previously known as Kathy Crossland) grew up in the UK where she trained as a dietitian. In 1996 she told her Mum she’d be away for a year and went to Vanuatu as a United Nations volunteer to work for the World Health Organisation. From there she went to Fiji with UNICEF as a regional nutrition advisor, primarily with maternal/child heath.

Kathy has travelled extensively through the Pacific where she met her “Kiwi bloke”. They married and moved to New Zealand where she had four daughters. “Mum gave up waiting for me to come home and moved here 13 years ago!” she says.

Kathy is a self-proclaimed “eco hippy from way back”. She has a 1/3 acre section with fruit trees, a veggie garden and chickens. Her happy place is Ngaranui beach in Raglan, with her dog.

“I enjoy tramping and got the Tora Coastal Walk in two-weeks before lockdown 2020 (pictured below)! I’m training for the 12km Round the Bridges run this year – I have managed the 6km, but now it’s in writing and you will all hold me to account.”

Experience Kathy brings to the role

Kathy worked for the Waikato Diabetes Service for 15 years, primarily with diabetes in pregnancy, but more recently with diabetic kidney disease (DKD) and with the high-risk foot (HRF) teams. In all three teams she has seen the worst complications of diabetes – the miscarriages, decline to renal failure and amputations. But she has also seen the best of people overcoming adversity.

“I have supported some women through 3 or 4 pregnancies in those 15 years, and seen their hard work and determination to gain good glycaemic control resulting in the joy of healthy babies. And I have helped many people with type 2 diabetes to gain better understanding of their condition, improve glycaemic control and stabilise their complications or save a foot.”

Kathy is a member of the NZSSD guidelines group and contributed to the most recent guidance for T2 diabetes in New Zealand.

How Kathy will support Waikato practices

“My 15 years with the Waikato DHB have been firefighting, ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stuff. My passion has always been education, teaching levels 7 and 8 diabetes papers at WINTEC and supporting nurses to be the best they can be as diabetes educators. Nutrition is the cornerstone of diabetes management, but my role with Pinnacle extends far beyond this.”

Some of the ways Kathy will be supporting the Pinnacle Waikato network include:

• supporting nurses who have recently taken diabetes tertiary papers to turn the theory into practice
• supporting nurse-led clinics for management of diabetes and its comorbidities, and starting insulin
• holding regular study days through the year in collaboration with The National Hauora Coalition and Hauraki PHOs.

Kathy has established links at secondary care for referral of patients who meet the criteria for DKD support or HRF and is always at the end of the phone if practices need support with a patient, or simply have a niggly question.