Graeme Fenton MNZM: GP's service to Moerewa honoured

Long-serving Moerewa GP Graeme Fenton has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Dr Graeme Holt Fenton, Moerewa
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and rural health

One of Northland's longest-serving GPs says he accepted today's honour on behalf of the people he has worked with since he opened his Moerewa practice more than 50 years ago.

Graeme Fenton, who was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, started Moerewa Medical Services in 1967 and has been there ever since, treating multiple generations of whānau.

Good staff and a good wife — essential to any rural GP — were the real reasons for the award, he said.

''I haven't known anything else. It's part of my life and what I do. You do a job and you do it to the best of your ability.''

Now aged 79 and since recently living in Whangārei, Fenton still works in Moerewa two days a week. He plans to retire after a replacement is found.

Honours from the medical profession include being named New Zealand's top rural GP in 2013 (the Peter Snow Memorial Award) and the Eric Elder Memorial Award in 2018 for commitment to teaching.

At the time his peers described him as ''the ultimate family doctor, an oracle of health politics, a visionary of rural care'' and ''a good bloke ... who's just quietly got on with it''.

Moerewa GP Graeme Fenton in 2013, when he was named New Zealand's top rural doctor, with two-year-old patient Manu Celeste Sadler, Manu's mum and dad Gazelle and Sonny Sadler, and practice nurse Pat Sullivan. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Fenton, however, said his proudest achievements were simply surviving so long, and a medical centre that was still functioning well after more than 50 years.

Despite working in a high-needs area for so long he had felt despondent only once.

That was earlier this year due to Northland's low vaccination rates and the thought of ''all hell breaking loose'' if Covid swept through the area. The region's jab rate was now, however, slowly going up.

''I've enjoyed what I do. I've had a good life, I've enjoyed working with the people of Moerewa, and I've enjoyed the people I've worked with.''

Fenton's other achievements include helping establish Ngāti Hine Health Trust and setting up New Zealand's first publicly funded rural locum and education service for GPs and practice nurses, of which he was a director for 17 years.

He served on the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network Board from 2004-08 and was involved in developing the Mid North's after-hours service in 2008, consolidating 10 GP practices to serve 40,000 people on-call. He then managed the service from 2009-19.

Fenton also served on the Te Tai Tokerau Primary Health Organisation Board from 2005-12.