Snell is a nurse practitioner specialising in diabetes, and is nurse lead of the diabetes and endocrinology service based at Palmerston North Hospital.
In the New Year’s honours list, she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to nursing and diabetes care.
Snell has been a trailblazer in improving standards of diabetes care, as well as a driving force for registered nurses (RNs) working in advanced practice roles.
In 2003, she became the 10th person to register as a nurse practitioner in this country, and the first to specialise in diabetes.
She led a successful pilot project for diabetes nurse prescribing in 2011, and oversaw the national roll-out of diabetes RN prescribing in 2012-2013. The project she ran later became a template for preparing RNs in other specialties to gain prescribing rights.
Snell developed the National Diabetes Nursing Knowledge and Skills Framework for the MidCentral District Health Board and the Ministry of Health to ensure a consistent approach to diabetes care. She was project lead for the development of online diabetes learning modules for health professionals and consumers, initially launched in 2012.
Snell was the first non-physician president of the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes, from 2019 to 2022, and was the first president of Nurse Practitioners New Zealand.
Other nursing and health-related honours include:
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Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
INGRID COLLINS, for services to Māori, business and health governance
Prominent Māori businesswoman Ingrid Collins (Ngāti Porou) has been made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori, business and health governance.
Collins has been chair of Whangara Farms, a partnership of three Māori incorporations, since its inception in 2006, representing the largest of these properties, Whangara B5 Incorporation.
Whangara Farms is regarded as an exemplar of best practice, sustainability and innovation for Māori land development. Situated north of Gisborne, it was the first New Zealand beef farm to join McDonald’s flagship farmers’ scheme in 2018 — a programme set up by the fast-food giant to encourage its supplier farms to share knowledge about sustainable farming practices.
She was a member of the AgResearch Māori Advisory Committee from 2013 to 2019 and was appointed to the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee from 2013 to 2015.
Collins has also had a career in health governance across a range of roles, including as chief executive and owner of Gisborne health centre Three Rivers Medical from 2005 to 2022, and nine years as chair of Tairawhiti District Health Board until 2011.
She serves as a trustee for a range of organisations, including the Matai Medical Research Institute, and Gisborne’s Chelsea Private Hospital.
In 2007, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Māori.
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
- DEBRA SORENSEN, for services to Pacific health
Trained as a psychatric nurse, Debra Sorensen has been instrumental in developing health services for Pacific people in New Zealand.
Since 2008, she has been the chief executive of Pasifika Medical Association Group, overseeing its growth into a large and effective provider of health services for Pacific people in New Zealand.
This organisation also delivers the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s New Zealand Medical Treatment Scheme — a programme which organises access to life-saving medical treatment for people in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Tuvalu
Sorenson has also chaired Pasifika Futures, a whānau ora commissioning agency for Pacific families, since 2014, and has been an adviser to several Pacific health ministers, also chairing the Pacific Expert Advisory Committee to the Minister of Health.
Sorenson has organised initiatives to raise funds for scholarships for young Pasifika people wanting to study health. She has also overseen ongoing support for humanitarian Pacific disaster relief work, including coordinating support for the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa
- MURRAY TILYARD, for services to health
Murray Tilyard has been a leader in the field of general practice, with a particular emphasis on patient safety, particularly the safe use of medicines, and making research knowledge useful to primary care clinicians.
Now an emeritus professor of general practice at the Otago School of Medicine, Murray Tilyard was head of the school’s department of general and rural practice from 1993 until retiring in 2022.
He established the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) Research Unit in 1981 and was a director until 1993.
Tilyard was also instrumental in setting up the New Zealand Formulary in 2012, which provides health professionals with independent information on best practice in use of medicines. He served as its chief executive officer and clinical advisor from 2011 to 2022, and remains its chair and chief clinical advisor.
He also set up the South Link Education Trust, and was the driving force behind other organisations including the Best Practice Advocacy Centre (BPACnz), InPractice which provides professional development programmes to medical practitioners, and BPAC Clinical Solutions, which provides electronic decision support tools for primary care in New Zealand.
Tilyard also led the New Zealand arm of the first international primary care patient safety study that set up a reporting system so that GPs could report safety incidents they had observed in their practices.
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit
- TANIA KINGI, for services to Māori and people with disabilities
Tania Kingi (Ngāti Pukeko, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whakahemo, Ngāti Mākino, Ngāi Tai) is a disability rights advocate and leader in the social, health and disability sectors in Auckland.
Her work involves building connections and partnerships, raising awareness and creating change, particularly for Māori with disabilities (whānau hauā).
Since 2004, she has been chief executive of Te Roopu Waiora, a kaupapa Māori consumer organisation supporting whānau hauā through wellness services. This includes helping them reestablish connections with their whānau, hapū, iwi and communities.
She has served on numerous boards, committees and charities, including the New Zealand Blood Service, the Charities Commission, Whānau Ora Regional Leadership Group, Disability Committee to Auckland Council, the Accident Compensation Corporation’s Rā Mātua Panel and the Ministry of Social Development’s national complaints panel.
Kingi is helping to recover understanding of traditional Māori concepts of disability and is currently completing a doctorate of indigenous advancement in traditional Māori responses to disability.
- IOSEFO JOSEPH FA’AFIU, for services to mental health, youth and the Pacific community
Iosefo Joseph Fa’afiu and his wife Lydia founded the HopeWalk Suicide Prevention Movement in 2015, after he lost a friend to suicide, which inspired him to unite people and address stigma.
The movement has inspired people in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada to participate in walking events to break down the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health, and help raise awareness. Over eight years, some 100,000 people participated in HopeWalk events worldwide.
Fa’afiu, a Samoan pastor and community leader in Papakura, led the Link4life Health Equity Campaign for Suicide Prevention, served as a member of the Pacific advisory unit for the Police in South Auckland and on the Counties Manukau Pacific Advisory Board.
To help support children’s resilience, he has written two children’s books which tackle bullying and identity issues, as well as the book Little Poppy (2017), which addresses the “tall poppy syndrome” in New Zealand society.
For high schoolers, he founded the the leadership workshop, Inspire, for high school leaders, and was a volunteer youth educator for Team Xtreme from 1999 to 2001, helping to educate 11- to 14-year-olds on how to deal with bullying, peer pressure and other life skills.
Fa’afiu has been a member of Planet Youth’s governance group since 2021, a prevention model to reduce substance use rates among young people in Papakura.
- PAUL MALPASS, for services to health
Paul Malpass is a specialist general surgeon and public health physician, who has been contributing to his community, district health boards, government agencies and health accreditation for more than 45 years.
He began as a general surgeon with the Royal Air Force in 1972, and worked at Taumarunui Hospital from 1976, including as surgeon superintendent until 1992. He was appointed surgical director to the Midland Regional Health Authority from 1992 to 2000.
While serving multiple terms at the Waikato District Health Board, he was a strong advocate for rural health needs. He was the chief medical officer of the Bay of Plenty District Health Board between 2001 and 2008.
Malpass was the inaugural head of the Bay of Plenty Multidisciplinary Clinical School in 2008, and was clinical director of Taupō Hospital from 2013 to 2017.
From 2018 to 2023, he was a member of the Te Whatu Ora Waikato Consumer Council, which promotes consumer involvement in health services, and served on the Taumarunui Oranga Tamariki Care and Protection Resource Panel from 2022 to 2023.
Honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
- CLARE HUTCHINSON-DE RANITZ, for services to midwifery
Clare Hutchinson-de Ranitz was a founding member of the New Zealand College of Midwives in 1990 and became the inaugural lead maternity carer (LMC) in the Waikato region, following the Nurses Amendment Act 1991.
As a LMC from 1991 until 2022, she delivered more than 5000 babies and provided feedback and advice to the college to document her and her colleagues’ experiences.
She helped establish River Ridge Birth Centre in 1997 at Southern Cross Hospital in Hamilton to provide an alternative birthing option for women, other than hospital or home births.
When the centre closed in 2002, she set up River Ridge East Birth Centre (RREBC), a purpose-built primary birthing facility in Hamilton. She has overseen its operations since 2002, during which time more than 11,000 babies were born at the centre.
To provide lactation consultant services for free, she helped create the Hamilton Breastfeeding Trust, with ongoing funding support secured from supporters and organisations. As a member of the Waikato Maternity Quality and Safety Committee since 2009, she has contributed to quality improvements to maternity services.