BELOW
Awana Bay.
OPPOSITE TOP
Medlands Beach at dawn.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM
The view from the nurse’s cottage across Rarohara Bay.
RIGHT
Adele and Shannon at their home.
BELOW
The Howies. From left to right: Amiria, Ivan, Leonie and Jordan.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge those islanders who have granted us permission to tell their personal stories and those who assisted us in validating the historical data included in the book. Without these people, there could not have been a book.
Our grateful thanks to our island-based colleagues (past and present)—we thank you for being part of ‘Team Aotea Health’ and for your service to the island community.
To Dr Jean Ross, who led us on a rural-nursing academic journey—we hope that this book has done justice to and adds knowledge of the characteristics of rural people, their communities and the nurses who care for them.
Our thanks also to Jenny Hellen and her team at Allen & Unwin, who encouragingly and tactfully nurtured us. To John McCrystal for his sensitive editing of the stories and for so capably dealing with the challenge of combining two voices in one book.
To our families—and especially our very tolerant husbands—who have provided unconditional support in the work that we do and over the years that we have lived and breathed this work.
To Dr Ivan Howie, who shared our vision of a health service specially tailored to the islanders’ needs, and who has been a teacher, mentor and friend by helping us both to fly in our professional roles.
Finally, we would like to pay tribute to our mothers, who are no longer with us. By example, they shaped us into the women we have become and pointed us along the nursing and midwifery pathway that we have never had cause to regret.
Leonie Howie (left) and Adele Robertson.
About the authors
Adele Robertson and Leonie Howie are rural nurse specialists and midwives on Great Barrier Island Aotea. They both hold Masters of Nursing degrees and, along with Dr Ivan Howie, are cofounders and directors of the island’s primary health service, Aotea Health. They have been fortunate to live and work on Great Barrier Island for more than 30 years—a beautiful place that is, as the islanders call it, a world of its own.
This book is their attempt to share the uniqueness of the place and the people, and to show the challenges and complexity of what it means to work in such a remote rural environment. Adele and Leonie belong to a community of hardy and rugged individuals who are used to coping with adversity and are never afraid to pitch in and offer support. As the two nurses have learned during their time on Aotea, the islanders are infinitely capable in both their outlook and their ability to care for each other.
This book has only been made possible by the individuals and families who have allowed Leonie and Adele to tell their stories—stories of struggle, stories of sorrow, stories of celebration. Adele and Leonie’s stories are the islanders’ stories; they are all woven together. As ‘insiders’, Adele and Leonie do not notice what people wear, how they look or what their employment is; instead, they celebrate the resilience, resourcefulness and caring spirit of the locals, and share a pride in the island of Aotea. They know, and are blessed to be part of, a community in which people care about each other.
Island Nurses Page 23
