Nurse-training-programme reunion in Gisborne this week

Most of the people involved in the first nurse-training programme run through a joint venture between Tairāwhiti Polytech and the Universal College of Learning more than 20 years ago will attend a reunion this week.

Thirty of them graduated and 25 look set to be at the reunion.

It starts on Friday with a dinner at Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Club, followed on Saturday by a tour of the EIT/Tairawhiti School of Nursing.

“We’re reconnecting, celebrating 20 years of nursing resilience,” reunion spokeswoman Yvette White said.

Nursing training resumed in Gisborne in 2002 - 18 years after the Cook Hospital nursing school closed in 1984.

“They were the guinea pigs, essentially setting the standards on whether the nursing school would succeed and be sustainable in growing our own nurses for Tairāwhiti,” White said.

“Previously, would-be nurses had to uplift whānau and move or travel to other areas where nursing training was offered.

“We had humble beginnings, equipped with one classroom, no clinical lab [and] a couple of blood pressure cuffs to practise on each other.

“Twenty years on, the nursing programme continues, having advanced from the one classroom to a fully equipped onsite clinical lab and classroom.

“Where are those first graduates now?”

White said they had all become successful in their own specialties and the majority were still nursing in New Zealand.

“Only a few moved to Australia,” she said. “This era has been through [the] Covid pandemic, nurse strikes - successful in improving pay conditions for nurses.”

She had advice to nurses in what was “a very political” current health environment.

“Resilience is key. Remember why you chose nursing as your career pathway.”