Ashleigh Battaerd said she was “absolutely blown away” by this week’s award, which recognised her “exceptional care and leadership” in the rural communities of Hauraki and Coromandel.
“There are many wonderful mātanga tapuhi in New Zealand and I’m quite a grass roots NP, beavering away doing my work,” she told Kaitiaki. “It was very surprising but very humbling to be acknowledged by my colleagues.”
‘I essentially donned wet weather gear and a dry bag with supplies and walked about 45 minutes over a hill to get to the other side of the slip . . . so I could open the clinic for the day.’
Working at iwi provider Te Korowai o Hauraki, Battaerd leads a team of GPs and NPs across four clinics in the rohe with an “unwavering commitment to supporting patients, whānau and colleagues in some of New Zealand’s most remote communities”, according to NPNZ.
She also had a willingness to go above and beyond “hiking over hills to open the clinic during rough weather, knowing no-one else would make it that day”.
Battaerd said that was in early 2023, during Cyclone Gabrielle, when a big slip was blocking the route from her home just outside Whitianga to the centre’s clinic.
“I essentially donned wet weather gear and a dry bag with supplies and walked about 45 minutes over a hill to get to the other side of the slip so I could be collected by colleagues and driven to the clinic so I could open the clinic for the day and provide care to the far northern community.”
She then had do the same thing in reverse, in the dark, at the end of the day.
“I’m no stranger to the outdoors, so it didn’t seem like much to me — but I get that not everyone has the same comfort with the outdoors as me!”
Originally from rural Canterbury, Battaerd had lived in the Coromandel for nearly 17 years with her teacher husband and was “very entrenched, very connected”.
“I grew up in a rural community in the South Island so rural communities are what I know and passionate about — and rural people are unique.”
She wanted to break down barriers to care and equity in rural communities. The key to achieving that was humility, she believed.
“Being a humble person, first and foremost. Being willing to be dynamic and think a bit laterally — probably home visiting a little bit more than people would in an urban area. Meeting people where they need to be met.”
Battaerd said while she was tauiwi — not Māori — she related very much to te ao Māori concepts and had been very warmly welcomed by the Hauraki iwi of Hauraki “I feel really valued, which is neat”.
Battaerd was among a swathe of NPs recognised for their mahi, at the Nurse Practitioner New Zealand (NPNZ) awards in Queenstown this week.
NZNO Te Rūnanga member Turuhira Marino, a Tairāwhiti primary care RN, won NP intern of the year for a practice “grounded in te ao Māori, cultural integrity and a deep commitment to health equity”.
“With more than 12 years nursing experience, she has dedicated her career to improving outcomes for whānau, strengthening the Māori workforce and providing holistic, culturally-responsive care,” NPNZ said.
Great Barrier Island NP Tania Kemp won the Janet Maloney-Moni innovation in health care award, named after New Zealand’s first Māori NP. The award recognised her work on the remote island providing accessible and culturally safe care in everything from emergency to palliative — often as the only available clinician.
Auckland NP Nazreen Begum Hussain, who works at Northland/Auckland Pacific health service, The Fono, received the Deborah Harris NP award for excellence in education and/or research — from Deborah Harris, New Zealand’s first registered NP.
Over the past 12 years, Hussain had provided compassionate and culturally responsive care to diverse communities, particularly those who faced barriers accessing care, NPNZ said.
NPs Mark Baldwin and Sandra Oster jointly won the outstanding professional contribution award.
Oster is a teaching fellow at the University of Auckland’s advanced practice nursing programme who has played a “pivotal role” in mentoring hundreds of NPs in her role at the university and with the NP training programme.
Dunedin mental health NP Baldwin spent nearly a decade advocating for legislative change to allow NPs to prescribe medication restricted under section 29 of the Medicines Act — a change which took place last November.
Dunedin mental health NP Baldwin spent nearly a decade advocating for legislative change to allow NPs to prescribe medication restricted under section 29 of the Medicines Act — a change which took place last November.