Susie Wakefield (left) and her daughter Te Rina Lind both graduated with a Masters in Nursing Science from Victoria University of Wellington.
Susie Wakefield (left) and her daughter Te Rina Lind both graduated with a Masters in Nursing Science from Victoria University of Wellington.
A Whanganui mother and daughter who graduated together with a Masters in Nursing Science are working to help Māori nurses into leadership roles in hospitals.
Mum Susie Wakefield (Ngā Wairiki/Ngāti Apa & Ātihaunui a Pāpārangi), who is 59, crossed the stage beside her 32-year-old daughter Te Rina Lind (Ngā Wairiki/Ngāti Apa & Ātihaunui a Pāpārangi, Ngā Rauru, Ngāi Tahu) at the Victoria University of Wellington graduation ceremony on Friday.
“I feel humbled and proud to have this moment,” Wakefield said.
They both graduated with a Masters in Nursing Science, with Wakefield’s thesis topic focusing on the experience of leadership for Māori nurses.
While completing their study, they worked fulltime and raised families.
Lind said she would find time to work on her assignments after her three children had gone to sleep. In 2015, Wakefield took a year off work to help support Lind with her family while she completed her undergraduate nursing degree.
“I don’t know how I managed it, looking back, but I think it just becomes your life and you have to tackle it every day,” Wakefield said.
It made Lind feel proud to now be graduating with her mother: “It takes a village, and my village is so helpful.”
“I didn’t know what to call her at first,” Te Rina Lind (left) says about working with her mum Susie Wakefield in Whanganui Hospital's theatre services unit.
Wakefield has worked at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora Whanganui for more than 20 years and now co-ordinates nurses in the theatre services unit for surgeries.
As a registered nurse in the same unit, Lind said it took time to adjust to switching from a family to a professional relationship with her mother.
“I didn’t know what to call her at first,” Lind said.
“I remember calling her mum at work once and everyone’s heads whipped around at once – they were like ‘Wait, she’s your mother?‘”
She said often people had been waiting so long for surgeries that when they arrived in the operating theatre, they were so grateful.
Previously, Lind worked as a nurse in Whanganui Prison.
“I loved giving care to people who normally wouldn’t get any in the community.”
For Wakefield, the drive to do further study came from wanting to give a resource to Māori nurses coming through the workforce.
In 2014, when Wakefield was appointed a clinical nurse specialist, there were no other Māori nurse leaders within the perioperative service, and very few in the wider hospital.
“I guess I’m just basing this off of my own experience, but it took me a little while to believe that I did have the ability and capabilities to come forward as a leader,” Wakefield said.
“We tend to be a culture that we’re always in the background, but coming to the forefront is hard ... we tend to be the workers behind the scenes.”
In her thesis, she wanted to examine why so few Māori nurse leaders were appointed to leadership roles.
The messages that came out of Wakefield’s thesis were that hospitals need to take a deeper look into ways to nurture Māori leadership, and that training programmes such as Ngā Manukura o Āpōpō for Māori nurses and midwives could provide vital confidence and skills for nurses stepping into leadership positions.
Two of their nieces also graduated at the ceremony in Wellington.
“The whole family [was] there,” Wakefield said.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023. You can contact her on eva.dejong@nzme.co.nz.
