The Roster Te Rārangi: Edition 16

A leader in crisis scenarios
Sarah Stuart-Black has been named as the next secretary general of New Zealand Red Cross. Ms Stuart-Black has recently been prominent in this country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been director of civil defence emergency management in the National Emergency Management Agency since 2014. Ms Stuart-Black has worked in New Zealand, England, Ethiopia, Niue and the Solomon Islands. She was a member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment & Coordination Team for nine years and has represented New Zealand in international forums.

Rethinking disability
Hannah Kerr has returned to the Ministry of Health as manager disability policy. Ms Kerr was a strategic priorities team member from 2012 to 2015. Since 2002, she has held public sector roles in the UK and New Zealand. She has led policy teams in the New Zealand Police and the Ministry of Education. Most recently, she was policy director of a private sector consultancy. She says she is looking forward to working alongside the disability community to improve outcomes for disabled people.

A public health champion
The Public Health Association has announced its new chief executive. He is Grant Berghan (Ngāpuhi, Ngātiwai and Te Rarawa). With Dame Margaret Sparrow, Mr Berghan won the association’s Public Health Champions Award in 2017. He was lead author of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in health promotion, a publication from STIR: Stop Institutional Racism, where he was co-chair and remains a life member. He has recently worked with the Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment on provincial development. Mr Berghan has experience in policy and programme development and implementation, contracting, funding, advocacy, facilitation and evaluation.

Mortality reviews and Te Tiriti
For the first time, the Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee has two co-chairs, as a step towards meeting Te Tiriti o Waitangi responsibilities. Matthew Reid and Alayne Mikahere-Hall (Ngāti Whatua, Te Rarawa, Tainui) say they will work to Whakauru, (Involve), Whakamōhio (Inform), Whakaawe (Influence) and Whakapai (Improve) the committee’s mortality review processes. The co-chairs will apply Te Pou, a Māori responsive good practice rubric to ensure culturally appropriate components are embedded in death reviews, reports and recommendations. Dr Mikahere-Hall is a senior lecturer and research fellow with the Faculty of Health & Environmental Sciences, AUT Taupua Waiora Research Centre. Her research focuses on hauora whānau, tamariki and rangatahi wellbeing, suicide and violence trauma prevention.

Reduce deaths, improve lives
The Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee’s role is to reduce deaths of children and young people aged between 28 days and 24 years, and to improve services delivered to them. The committee's other co-chair, Matthew Reid, is a public health medicine specialist whose experience includes overseas postings with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and planning services for children and young people for Canterbury and West Coast DHBs. He is chief clinical advisor for the National Investigation and Tracing Centre in the COVID-19 health response directorate at the Ministry of Health.

Crucial GP meeting this week
The General Practice Owners Association of Aotearoa New Zealand retains its interim chair, Tim Malloy, GP and co-owner of Coast to Coast Health Care, Wellsford, until its inaugural annual meeting on 5 November. The chair will then be voted in by a board of directors, newly elected by members. The directors are: Dr Malloy; Angus Chambers, GP and co-owner, Riccarton Clinic, Christchurch; Geoff Cunningham, GP and co-owner, Bush Road Medical Centre, Whangārei; Kawshi De Silva, GP, medical director and owner, Te Atatu South Medical Centre, Auckland; Tony Edwards, GP, co-owner and managing director, The Doctors Napier; Ash Revell, general manager, Green Cross Health; and Gerald Young, GP and director, White Cross CityMed, Auckland.

Encouragement for nurses
Coral Skipper (Ngāti Whātua) started last month in a new role supporting nurses into primary care. Ms Skipper is Northland regional coordinator for enrolled nurse and nurse practitioner workforce development. As reported by New Zealand Doctor | Rata Aotearoa, this is part of a programme funded by the Ministry of Health. The region’s PHO, Mahitahi Hauora is a partner in the programme, and employs Ms Skipper. She was formerly its long-term conditions portfolio leader and locality network leader. As a diabetes clinical nurse specialist at Waitematā DHB, she won the Kauae Raro Māori Nurse Leader Award in 2018.

HealthLinking and Konnecting
Clanwilliam Health has a new chief executive in Mike Weiss, who has been with the company since it was formed last year via the merger of HealthLink and Konnect NET. Mr Weiss had been chief executive of Konnect NET, but became deputy chief executive and chief commercial officer of the new company. The HealthLink service transmits nearly all secure clinical communications across the New Zealand health system, while Konnect NET facilitates health data exchange between insurers and health professionals. Mr Weiss formerly held senior roles with Sovereign and ING.

Dame Dr Karen's on the case
Dame Dr Karen Poutasi chairs the newly announced Immunisation Programme Governance Group for COVID-19 Vaccine, which met for the first time last week. The group oversees progress on purchasing, sequencing and delivering any successful COVID-19 vaccines. Dame Dr Karen stepped down in February after 14 years heading the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Now the commissioner at Waikato DHB, she has had 30-plus years in health management, including 11 as director-general of health (1995 to 2006). The vaccine governance group’s other members are current director-general Ashley Bloomfield, John Whaanga, Steve Maharey, Bruce Plested, Carolyn Tremain, Murray Jack, Ngāhiwi Tomoana and Fa’afetai Sopoaga.

In the thick of it
Sarah Helm is moving from one highly topical role to another. Ms Helm becomes the New Zealand Drug Foundation’s chief executive, after several months as communications manager for the All of Government COVID-19 Response Group, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Ms Helm has specialised in communications, including for NZEI Te Riu Roa, the Alcohol Advisory Council and the Heath Promotion Agency (which took over the council’s work). For four years, until 2009, Ms Helm was national executive officer of the peak body for youth development in Aotearoa (now Ara Taiohi). She was later general manager for the Green Party.

MP's list of credentials
One of the medics newly arrived at Parliament did not receive a mention in The Roster Te Rārangi Issue 15. Apologies to infectious diseases specialist Ayesha Verrall, who has made the leap from clinician to list MP for the Labour Party. Dr Verrall audited the Government’s contact-tracing. With colleagues at the University of Otago, Wellington, she co-authored a journal article on New Zealand's COVID‐19 elimination strategy. She has resigned from the university, where she was a senior lecturer in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, and from Wellington Regional Hospital and the Capital & Coast DHB board. As well as her medical degree, Dr Verrall has a PhD on immunity to tuberculosis.

A spot of star-gazing
New Zealand Doctor | Rata Aotearoa editor Barbara Fountain has been doing some star-gazing. As Ms Fountain and team at The Health Media Ltd plan the 2021 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards | He Tohu Mauri Ora, she has highlighted the 2020 achievers. I hope you will consider entering this time, or encouraging others to do so! Please forward this email to colleagues. It is free to subscribe to The Roster Te Rārangi. Thank you very much.

– Virginia McMillan, editor; phone 021 914 699;
email vmcmillan@nzdoctor.co.nz