Maori health expert is home

MARIA PRIESTLEY
Award-winning doctor David Tipene-Leach, who has spent more than 10 years involved with Maori health, began his new role as general practitioner with Hawke's Bay Maori health provider Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga yesterday.
Dr Tipene-Leach, worked as a GP in Gisborne for six years and was a considerable driving force behind promoting incentives that made an impact in Maori health, helping reduce the number of diabetes cases and infant mortality rates in that area.
Originally from Porangahau, Ngati Kahungunu, Dr Tipene-Leach has lived away from his hometown for more than 20 years but now is finally "happy to be home again", he said. Well, almost home.
He will be based in Hastings but is looking forward to regularly making the one-hour drive to Porangahau, where his family still lives.
Dr Tipene-Leach, who is fluent in te reo, is looking forward to making a positive impact in the health community in Hawke's Bay.
For now, he will focus on being a GP, but would be open to considering future projects "if there was an opportunity to develop".
Previously a senior lecturer in public health with a specialist interest in Maori health at the University of Auckland's Medical School, he moved to Gisborne in 2001 and was installed as clinical leader of Puhi Kaiti Community Health Centre practice.
While there, he and colleagues David Bellfield and Sanet Cloete built the practice from 3500 to 8500 patients, taking on three fulltime doctors in the process.
"I originally came only to work as a three-week locum at Te Puia Springs Hospital in 2000 - and I stayed for six years."
During his time as director of the Maori Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Prevention Programme, cot deaths in the region's Maori community fell by more than 60 percent.
He has contributed on the National Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee since 2002.
His work was recognised with the Marire Goodall award by the Maori Medical Practitioners Association at the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors Congress conference in Rotorua last December.
He said he attributes his success to "a lot of hard work in small Maori communities and bringing about more awareness of Maori health through PHOs".
SIDS continues to be a passion for Dr Tipene-Leach. He helped develop the Wahakura Project in Gisborne - promoting the use of woven flax bassinets for newborns to reduce the high SIDS risk associated with bed sharing.
He has also been involved in cardio-vascular research during the past decade and helped develop the Ngati and Healthy Prevent Diabetes programme, which was nominated for the Health Innovations Award last year.