Vercoe told Kaitiaki that she did not want to talk too much about herself. That she wanted to use the opportunity to honour the legacy of Māori nurses who established the centre but have passed away. And to highlight the importance of the Māori nursing workforce going forward.
Honouring nurses who have passed
“All I’ve really done is manage this special kaupapa, keep it alive. Korowai Aroha started because several nurses were working at Rotorua Hospital, getting sick of seeing so many Māori people die on their watch,” Vercoe says.
“They could see there was nothing meaningful in the community to prevent the illnesses too many Māori people were dying of, so they put their heads and their hearts together and weaved that with the tikanga and cultural knowledge they had.”
The founding nurses who birthed Korowai Aroha in 1992 were Ivy Curtis, Nellie Curtis, Ruth Faulds, Miriarangi Heke, Wima Kameta, Charlene Kershaw, Rosaline Ransfield and Ngaire Whata. All of them were affiliated to Te Arawa – the tribe whose area includes Rotorua.
The late Dame Tariana Turia paid tribute to them in a speech from 2009 when she was Associate Minister of Health.
“I want to pay tribute to the vision that a group of Māori nurses had in those early days, of believing in ourselves – knowing that Māori can do it for ourselves.
“We are indebted to their imagination and their belief that the health and wellbeing of the community could be achieved under the korowai of Māori worldviews,” Turia said.
Having the backs of nurses today
Korowai Aroha currently has two nurse practitioners and six nurses who support the organisation’s 10,000 enrolled clients. They even have a nurse specifically dedicated to kura kaupapa Māori (immersion Māori schools), diabetes and respiratory issues.
“It’s important that our nurses know that we – from our board to management – have their backs,” Vercoe says.
“When our nurses need support to become prescribers and practitioners, we 100 per cent back them on that journey.
“There’s a lot happening in the political space, but we will not go backwards and we are constantly looking at ways to support our nurses to keep moving forward.
“The nurses are not just the clinical experts, they come from the communities they are caring for and we recognise their value to our kaupapa.”
Most of the graduate nurses that Korowai Aroha employs come from the local Toi Oho Institute of Technology.
“In the past few years, we’ve managed to give full-time work to all graduates who’ve done placements with us. Our nurse retention rate is amazing, when they come here they tend not to leave,” Vercoe giggled.
“Manaakitanga” was key to retaining all staff.
“We practice manaakitanga at every level of this organisation – from the board to the clients and our kaimahi. That’s our x-factor,” Vercoe said.
Governments come and go – ‘we still get the business done’
Vercoe has seen many Governments come and go, and it has been her responsibility for at least 20 years to ensure Rotorua’s largest Māori health provider keeps providing “hauora to the people.”
“Sadly, right now it is about survival and competition for many health providers around the country but not here, not for us.
“Here in Rotorua we work with other groups, even the other Māori health provider here. We work with NGOs, Pākehā and Māori, and marae, hapū and iwi groups. We will work with anyone who can help us get hauora to the people,” Vercoe says.
‘We do the business but we do it our way, using cultural knowledge and our values that we were raised with. It is common to see doctors and traditional healers working together here.’
In the past few years, Korowai Aroha has had to deal with COVID-19, a homeless pandemic and now anti-Māori political policies being executed. But they are all “things to learn from,” she says.
“We learnt a lot from COVID – how to mobilise our people to get vaccinated and how to rebuild trust with them, because many of them had the perception that we were government.
“The homeless pandemic we saw and are still seeing in Rotorua, is another negative we are learning much from. Our nurses have become so much more resilient and dedicated, even establishing a night event once every two months where the homeless who have no GP can go for free health checks.
‘We are also learning from this Government. We are learning how to be stronger and smarter.’
An old style of leadership shines through
From a western perspective, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao, the other Māori health provider in Rotorua, might be classed as Korowai Aroha’s “competition.” But that is not the case, according to its chairwoman Mapihi Raharuhi who affiliates to the same tribe as Hariata.
“We have nurses and GPs just like Korowai Aroha, but it’s not a competition for either of us.
“We’ve always respected Hariata’s willingness to work together with us on so many things including COVID and clinics in the community, just to name a few,” Raharuhi says.
“Hariata has a special kind of leadership, and it comes from her being a wahine Māori raised with values of manaakitanga which her parents lived and breathed everywhere they went – from the marae to the hapū, local sports clubs and even in choirs.”
As a local Māori health administrator, Rahuruhi appreciated the value of “walking in both worlds – te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā.”
“Korowai Aroha has done so well because they have a leader in Hariata who knows how to do both the ‘business’ and ‘the whakapapa’ – get the contracts, deliver on them, actually over-deliver on them, get the right staff, make the right environment for them and look after our people all at the same time,” Raharuhi says.
Wanted to be a nurse
While reluctant to talk about herself, Vercoe did tell Kaitiaki that she should have become a nurse.
“I worked in forestry before entering health and when I got to Korowai Aroha many years ago, the penny dropped – I should have been a nurse,” says Vercoe as she laughed.
“But I’ve found other ways to care – and that’s through managing this place.”
Hariata has eight siblings and was raised firstly at Horohoro then at Okere Falls, on the western end of Lake Rotoiti near Rotorua where she continues to reside today.
Through her dad she is comes from Te Arawa tribes – Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Kea/Ngāti Tuara, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Makino. Through her mum she hails from Te Rarawa.