Highlighting NZ Nurses & Midwives

To celebrate our midwives and nurses this year, Te Whatu Ora in Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay has produced a booklet highlighting the great mahi happening in our community.

Chief Nursing Officer Karyn Bousfield-Black says as people around the motu pause to acknowledge the international days for nurses and midwives, we also reflect on their response to Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Once again, our teams supported the health response, our communities and each other, and provided every day care, while managing their own personal impact of the cyclone.”

Mrs Bousfield-Black says the resilience and adaptability to such a devastating event proves why we should be proud of our professions.

“We have produced a booklet celebrating our nurses and midwives in honour of the International Day of the Midwife, on 5 May, and International Nurses Day, on 12 May.

“In it, we profile a number of our colleagues and acknowledge the good mahi they do. However, this is just a snippet of the huge difference they make every day on the wards, in general practices and in our community,” Mrs Bousfield-Black says.

This booklet includes stories of our nurses providing emergency care in cut-off rural communities after Cyclone Gabrielle, such as Emergency Department Nurse Rebecca Symonds in Puketapu who raided her and her neighbours’ first aid kits to tend to people’s wounds.

Then there was Nurse Practitioner and Esk Valley evacuee Kate Te Pou who with other health professionals, stood up an emergency clinic without power and internet connection. And despite the challenges, she says she’d do it all again to help the local community.

Lead Maternity Carer Julie Kinloch is also featured in the booklet for her work setting up a make-shift maternity suite in Napier. Julie, a midwife with 35 years of experience behind her, stuck a pen and paper to her front door to communicate with hāpu māmā after the cyclone wiped out communications in the region.

Alongside these, are stories of community-based nurses like Takapau Health Centre Team Leader Jo Ward who has been caring for her rural community for 11 years.

While at Te Mata Peak Practice, Nurse Practitioner and Russian-speaking immigrant Victoria Zeyfert is encouraging Ukrainian refugees to come in for a consult where she can treat them and talk to them in their own language.

Catherine Overfield, Acting Director of Midwifery says the Te Matau a Māui midwifery team proudly works in collaboration with its nursing colleagues in the hospital setting and, in the community, to achieve improved and equitable outcomes for all whānau.

“We want to acknowledge the continued hard work and dedication of everyone in the nursing and midwifery team, and the support and aroha received from colleagues and communities that have sustained us at this time.”

View the Celebrating Our Nurses and Midwives booklet on the Te Whatu Ora in Hawke’s Bay website, Ourhealthhb.nz, at: https://www.ourhealthhb.nz/news-and-events/events/international-day-of-the-midwife-and-day-of-the-nurse-2/

ENDS

Tracey Chatterton (she/her)

Senior Communications Advisor | Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay

waea pūkoro: +64 27 279 1554 | +64 878 8109 extn: 4768 | īmēra: tracey.chatterton@hbdhb.govt.nz

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