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Counties Manukau’s nursing hero is nominated for her work in making her mark not only in Middlemore’s critical care services but across the Pacific in Samoa.

NAME: Jenny Stewart
DHB: Counties Manukau
JOB: Associate charge nurse manager, critical care complex

Counties Manukau’s nursing hero is nominated for her work in making her mark not only in Middlemore’s critical care services but across the Pacific in Samoa.

Jenny Stewart has worn several hats in the past decade but they all have a common theme of striving to develop and improve critical care nursing.

In April 2014 the DHB’s critical care complex (covering Middlemore’s intensive care and high dependency units) was asked to go and review the critical care services for the intensive care unit at Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital in Samoa’s capital Apia. This led to 12 months’ work with the Apia ICU supported by funding from the Regional Pacific Health Development.

Jenny led this programme of work with the board saying she demonstrated excellent leadership with her organising, networking and team-building skills, along with her excellent powers of persuasion. The result was she has created what has been described as a very robust network of people, both at Counties and in Apia, who are passionate about improving healthcare outcomes in Apia’s ICU, through developing staff skills, by offering training and education, but also through ensuring the provision of ICU equipment is reviewed to enable staff to better assist in providing high quality care.

The DHB says her leadership both in New Zealand and Samoa has been a real credit not only to her but also to the critical care complex. It hopes to continue building on Jenny’s foundational work in the years to come to assist in the development of intensive care nursing in Samoa. Counties Manukau Health has been working with countries in the wider Pacific region since 2002 when it signed its first memorandum of understanding with the Cook Islands. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) funds the DHB to provide services to a number of Pacific countries which now also include Samoa, Niue, Fiji and Kiribati.