Three nursing leaders – current and past – are amongst those honoured in the latest Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Auckland’s Dr Lee Mathias, Sue Matthews of Te Puke and Marie Burgess of Gisborne were all honoured.
A primary health nurse leader with a passion for equal access to healthcare and making a difference, Sue Matthews of Western Bay of Plenty’s Kaitiaki Nursing Services, became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM).
Matthews is clinical nurse leader for Kaitiaki’s 28 nurses who provide a wide range of innovative community health services under contract to the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation including a whanau nursing service and community outreach clinics in the local freezing works and kiwi fruit packing houses. She is also a Western Bay of Plenty District councilor, and a member of the National Child and Youth Mortality Review committee, Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, China Friendship Trust and a clinical nurse educator for Waiariki nursing students on practicum. “It is all about making a difference or enabling others to make a difference.”
The former Plunket nurse and area manager was Plunket’s national clinical educator and then education manager from 1996-2002. She has been a lecturer for Waiariki Institute of Technology’s nursing degree, a quality coordinator for an aged care facility and since 2010 has been in her current role at Kaitiaki.
Marie Burgess, a former Nursing Council of New Zealand registrar and president of the then New Zealand Nurses Association has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) for services to nursing and the community. The registered nurse and midwife was registrar and executive director of the Nursing Council from 1999 to 1995. She is a former national president of the New Zealand Nurses Association (the predecessor of NZNO) and was chair of the Nursing Education and Research Foundation. Burgess has had a special interest in the law as it applies to nursing and midwifery and health professional regulation.
In the 1980s she wrote the book Nursing in New Zealand Society and in 2007 her book A Guide to the Law for Nurses and Midwives was published.
Former principal nurse of Middlemore Hospital and chair of the Health Promotion Agency Dr Lee Mathias was honoured for her services to health and business and became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM).The registered nurse and experienced board director and health manager is currently also deputy chair of the Auckland District Health Board.
She was principal nurse of Middlemore Hospital from 1987-1993, and went on to become managing director of the 47-bed maternity hospital, Birthcare Auckland, for 11 years. Mathias gained her doctorate in health science in 2009 with a thesis looking at the shaping of governance decision-making in public healthcare services. She is currently a member of the New Zealand Midwifery Council and a director of the Midwifery and Maternity Provider Organisation Limited along with holding directorships and advisory roles for a number of other enterprises
Also honoured in the Queen’s Birthday honours this year was National Health Board chair and former Treasury head Dr Murray Horn who became a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to business and health. He chaired the Minister of Health’s Ministerial Review Group, which reported in July 2009, and last year became inaugural chair of the Health Innovation Hub.
The chair of the Waikato District Health Board, Graeme Milne, was given an ONZM for services to health and the dairy industry and Joe Butterfield, the chair of the Southern District Health Board became an MNZM (Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit).
