Russell identity Patu (Patricia) Sigley has been named by the Ministry of Health as the Health Volunteer of the Year, in recognition of her outstanding achievements within the community.
She was nominated by Haratu Kororāreka Marae for her work over more than 50 years, often in small and sometimes isolated communities.
The career nurse has spent a large part of her so-called non-working life busy as a volunteer, helping set up hauora clinics, volunteering for the rural ambulance service for 20 years, assisting people into pensioner housing or community living. She also helped with the distribution of food parcels during the Covid-19 lockdown, and made sure the community was aware of testing and how to access it.
Her nursing career got off to a shaky start, however. She trained in Hamilton for two years before returning home to be with her mother and seven siblings when her father died. She worked at Kawakawa's Bay of Islands Hospital, completed her training as a Registered Nurse Aid, then became an enrolled nurse in 1966, completing her nursing registration from Palmerston North.
She understood the need for Māori health workers to visit their own people, and noted the difference it made to have a Māori nurse explain procedures and listen to concerns. And as a diabetes nurse, she was shocked to find that so many people had "no idea" about the disease.
