Role Call - People on the move and getting recognition in the health sector

Sandy Bhawan has joined the RNZCGP as manager, quality programmes.

Pharmacist Ms Bhawan has just completed five years with Pharmac, most recently as manager of access equity.

A former senior manager with Te Awakairangi Health Network in Hutt Valley, she serves on the executive committee of the Pharmaceutical Society and is an honorary senior lecturer in pharmacy at the University of Auckland.

Maria Baker (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa) has started as chief executive at Te Hiku Hauora in Kaitaia.

For more than five years, Dr Baker was chief executive of Wellington-headquartered Māori workforce development and research organisation Te Rau Ora, formerly Te Rau Matatini.

She joined Te Rau Matatini in 2007 after serving with Northland DHB as a mental health leader.

Te Hiku Hauora is a Far North iwi health provider with a clinic co-located with dental services and a pharmacy at Kaitaia, as well as a clinic at Coopers Beach, and was formerly led by Bill Halkyard.

New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa’s health policy columnist Tim Tenbensel has been promoted from associate to full professor at the University of Auckland.

Professor Tenbensel is based in the health systems department in the School of Population Health, which he joined in 1997. His work focuses on accountability in the health sector.

Other new professors include Joanne Barnes (pharmacy), Cass Byrnes (paediatrics), Johanna Montgomery (physiology), Grant Searchfield (audiology) and Malcolm Tingle (pharmacology).

Medicines New Zealand has appointed Peter Jansen (Ngāti Hinerangi, Ngāti Raukawa) as independent chair, with the departure after five years of Lee Mathias. Specialist GP Dr Jansen is a medical advisor with ACC, having held a senior medical advisory role with the agency from 2014 to 2020. He recently worked in clinical governance in New South Wales, Australia. Also new to the Medicines NZ board is Vanessa Eparaima MNZM (Raukawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Waikato, Te Arawa), te ao Māori director, who is also chair of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

Monica Goldwater is moving from the US to be Southern Cross Healthcare’s chief nursing officer. Ms Goldwater has worked in public and private care, and inpatient and outpatient settings across the US and New Zealand, in roles including director of nursing, clinical director and director of perioperative and cardiovascular services. Earlier in her career, Ms Goldwater worked as a theatre nurse at Royston Hospital in Hawke’s Bay. Now director of perioperative services at the University of Vermont Medical Centre, she is relocating to Auckland and will start at Southern Cross in May

Craig Watson has moved from his role as business manager, Three Rivers Health in Ashburton, to become pou whirinaki / service delivery manager for the Cancer Society’s Canterbury-West Coast branch.

Mr Watson has held senior positions with Pegasus Health and Waitaha Primary Health. The society’s Canterbury-West Coast branch has centres in Christchurch, Rangiora, Timaru, Ashburton, Greymouth and Rolleston.

Christine Dwyer is the new team leader for the West Coast.