Dame Rangimārie Naida Glavish says New Zealand’s health sector has a lot more to do to address the inequities and barriers for Māori.
Glavish is celebrating 30 years of service to the sector and has been involved in Māori health and education since the 1980s.
“We’ve done some tremendous work and we’ve received some tremendous help but the struggle, the demand, it just keeps on going. We’re making progress but not as we’d like to make in the health sector. We’re still the highest of everything negative.”
Glavish is the Chief Advisor Tikanga Māori with He Kāmaka Waiora, Māori Health, for the Waitematā and Auckland District Health Boards.
In this role, she leads the organisation in managing relationships with mana whenua and iwi Māori from a tikanga perspective while assisting in upholding the district health board's Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.
She says the health sector must ensure Treaty equity is at the top of the list.
“Both Treaty partners have a right, and both Treaty partners have a responsibility in that right to manaaki everyone else that’s in this country. Equity is high on the list.”
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Hospital workers pay increase will never be enough - Dame Naida Glavish / Te Ao - Nov 2018
In 1990, Glavish, of Ngāti Whātua, entered the health sector as the former Auckland Area Health Board’s bicultural manager.
Changes she brought about included separating pillows used for patients' heads from those used for under the body. She also helped establish whānau rooms at Auckland Hospital to benefitboth Māori and non-Māori families.
“We insisted on ensuring that each ward could accommodate the patients who do have more than two visitors.”
Since the impact of COVID-19, Glavish has also contributed to supporting staff and whānau affected.
This included the seven nurses at Waitākere Hospital who contracted COVID-19 after caring for patients from the St Margarets Rest Home.
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Ngāti Whātua elder calls for more iwi participation in prisoner rehabilitation / Te Ao - July 2018
Waitematā District Health Board deputy chief executive Andrew Brant says Glavish's work over the past three decades has been invaluable.
“Whaea Naida’s contribution to our communities and to Māori health has been extraordinary,” he says.
Brant says Glavish has been influential in enhancing the diversity of the DHBs workforce and is a passionate advocate of staff learning te reo Māori.
“Many people have benefited from Whaea Naida’s dedication to improving equity and tikanga within the health sector," Dr Brant says.
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Glavish acknowledged for services to Māori, community / Te Ao - May 2018
Glavish is also involved with a range of iwi, government and community organisations including cultural advisor to the Chief Coroner and was appointed a member of the Māori Advisory Panel to the Chief Ombudsman in December last year.
In 2011, she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). In 2018 she received the Queen's Service Medal for services to Māori and the community and was knighted, becoming a dame companion of NZ Order of Merit (DNZM).