The country’s first Māori chief nursing officer, Margareth Broodkoorn, has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday and Platinum Jubilee honours list.
Broodkoorn, who is of Ngāpuhi and Dutch whakapapa, received the honour for her services to health and Māori. In a nursing career of more than 30 years, she has worked to strengthen cooperation between Māori and non-Māori in the nursing profession.
Before taking the top nursing role at the Ministry of Health at the start of 2019, she was director of nursing and midwifery at Northland District Health Board (DHB). In late 2020 she returned north to where she was born, to become chief executive officer of Hokianga Health Community Trust.
During the pandemic, Broodkoorn established and led the Ministry of Health’s infection prevention and control team for the COVID-19 response, providing clinical guidance on the use of personal protective equipment across the health and disability system.
Over her career, she has worked with Māori health and community providers to mentor nurses and support Māori nurses across New Zealand. She was the chair of Tāmaki Makaurau Nurse Leaders Roopu between 1995 and 2000, and has worked with Māori health providers in Northland, and at Manukau Institute of Technology and Auckland University.
She has been an executive member of Te Kaunihera o Ngā Neehi Māori (National Council of Māori Nurses), a member of the Health Workforce New Zealand Nursing Advisory Group and had extensive involvement in the work of the Nursing Council. She was the sponsor of Ngā Manukura o Āpōpō, the national Māori nursing and midwifery clinical leadership workforce programme.
Other nursing and health-related honours recipients include:
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM)
* MARJET POT has been made an ONZM for services to women’s health, in both professional and volunteer capacities. She is a life member of the College of Midwives for her services to that profession.
She volunteered with the Auckland Home Birth Association in the 1980s, and was part of a small volunteer group working with medical professionals and consumers to set up the Midwifery Standards Review Committee (MSRC) peer review forum. She helped expand the programme from an annual review of independent midwives and has trained others in the programme nationwide.
She has worked for Auckland DHB in several roles since 1976 and has made significant contributions to a range of initiatives at National Women’s Health, including improving services to women and their babies and information technology. She had a lead role in the closure of National Women’s Hospital and the move to Auckland City Hospital in 2004.
Pot became project manager of the National Women’s Health annual clinical report in 2003, ensuring the document met high epidemiological standards and that maternity information was accurately recorded.
* BEV POWNALL, of Auckland, has been made an ONZM, for her services to health, particularly breastfeeding. A nurse and midwife, she certified as an international board certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) in 1997, and has working tirelessly since to build the professionalism of IBCLCs nationally.
She has encouraged numerous GPs, paediatricians, nurses, midwives, dietitians and others to become IBCLCs, personally mentoring and clinically supporting many of them.
Pownall has been instrumental in shaping Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) administration at various DHBs and mentoring new BFHI coordinators around New Zealand. She is a current board member and has worked with the New Zealand Breastfeeding Alliance (NZBA) since 1996, mostly voluntarily, working on committees, reviewing and writing key documents, and as a lead BFHI auditor.
She worked on the New Zealand National Breastfeeding Strategy 2008 and the 2019/2020 working group for the updated national strategy, and has been active on the board of the New Zealand Lactation Consultants Association (NZLCA).
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM)
* Invercargill nurse SANDY BORLAND, has been made an MNZM for her services to nursing and the Pacific community.
Borland began working at the Southern DHB in 1984 as a nurse aide at Kew Hospital (now Southland Hospital), later qualifying as an enrolled nurse, then a registered nurse in 1999. With significant clinical experience in the surgical ward, dementia unit and day surgery, she joined the Pacific Island case management nursing service in 2004, for which she has worked ever since..
Mrs Borland has been a key leader for Miharo, a Māori and Pasifika cultural arts trust in Southland, since 2009, and a mentor for young people. She is heavily involved in the Invercargill branch of Pacifica, a women’s organisation promoting the positive involvement of Pacific people in New Zealand society. Through Pacifica, she led a drive to support Samoa through the measles outbreak in 2019. After talking to nurses in Samoa about what they needed, she gathered donated baby products and disposable items and liaised with a local freight company for delivery.
She helped establish a Pacific health clinic in Murihiku (Southland) which provides health services to the community in a culturally responsive manner. Through the clinic, she supplies items to Pacific families in need, including bedding, furniture, food parcels and home-cooked meals.
* Husband and wife MATAIO BROWN and SARAH BROWN were both made MNZM for services to mental health and prevention of family violence.
In 2019, they co-founded She Is Not Your Rehab, a non-religious and non-legislative movement to change the culture around abusive relationships, domestic violence and unhealthy ideals of masculinity. She is Not Your Rehab encourages men not to put the burden of past trauma on their partners and to seek help themselves.
They co-wrote the bestselling book She Is Not Your Rehab, which was published in 2021. Funds were raised to gift 9350 copies of the book to all prisoners in the country through the Department of Corrections. Since 2019, they have partnered with the Ministry of Social Development and Aviva as ambassadors for the anti-violence “It’s Not OK” campaign.
Mataio Brown also founded My Father’s Barbers, a community barbershop that supports men’s mental health and family violence prevention initiatives, including weekly men’s group sessions at the barbershop and daily talks with men in the chair.
He hosts and speaks at family violence prevention events, seminars, wananga on marae, group therapy on construction sites and barbershops, as well as internationally. in 2018, he started a barbering programme in men’s prisons throughout the country, in partnership with the Pathway Trust.
* Otago nurse MARGARET FRASER has been made MNZM for her services to hepatology. She has been a clinical nurse specialist in hepatology at the Southern DHB since 1996.
She helped patients through a change in treatment of viral hepatitis infection from a year-long treatment plan — with limited success and high chances of complications and side-effects — to a three-month treatment plan with a near 100 percent success rate in curing the infection.
Hepatitis patients are often stigmatised, as the main route of infection is through intravenous drug use, tattooing and piercing. Fraser has supported patients beyond the administration of treatment. With only a small number of people coming forward for treatment to avoid contact with authorities, she set up the first clinic at the Otago Corrections Facility to diagnose and treat patients with hepatitis C and other hepatological illnesses.
With the Dunedin intravenous drug users organisation, she started offering diagnostic and treatment clinics, and worked with the community alcohol and substances service to reach patients outside the health service.
Fraser helped organise hui in Dunedin, Lower Hutt and Tauranga with members of the Mongrel Mob to facilitate testing and education of members and their families. She was appointed clinical nurse specialist representative of the South Island Alliance Hepatitis C Working Group in 2016.
Queen’s Service Medal
* REREMOANA NORMAN has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for her services to Māori and mental health, having worked more than 25 years in mental health services in Auckland and Northland.
She began her career in South Auckland in 1993 during a period of change, with the closure of Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital, an increase in community-based mental health services, and a drive to improve Māori mental health. Working for Counties Manukau DHB from 1999 to 2006, she advocated for Māori equity, developed Māori clinicians and kaumātua services, and represented Māori on regional and national mental health forums.
From 2007 to 2017, she was district manager of Far North Mental Health and Addictions at Northland DHB, facing challenges affecting the community such as paedophilia disclosures, increased criminal activity and high suicide rates.
Her roles have included director of Māori development and manager of community engagement with the Mental Health Foundation, and chair of the board of trustees of Te Rau Matatini (now Te Rau Ora), the national centre for Māori workforce development, education and cultural capability.