Long road led to Wairarapa

Wairarapa's newest medical specialist is Dr Nilda Ante, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, who has spent a large part of her life dedicated to helping women and their babies in Third World countries.
She joins Dr Nassar Shehata creating a full complement of specialist maternity services in the region.
Dr Ante arrived in Masterton three weeks ago and says she's found the region breath-taking on two counts.
Being "whipped over" the Rimutaka hill road on her way from Wellington, she said she held her breath with fright. Only to gasp at what she described as "the incredible beauty of the Wairarapa valley.
"All those sheep and greenness. It's just like I'd imagined."
Philippines-born and educated initially, she's spent many years in the eastern United States where she gained her obstetrics qualifications.
She was a partner in a three-woman practice in Virginia and Delaware and then "semi-retired" so she could spend time as a volunteer worker with the international organisation, Physicians for Peace.
This involved stints in rural areas of Guyana, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines where women often gave birth in areas without back up of a hospital or doctor. It was common for the medical teams she worked with to operate in groups in tents or very primitive conditions.
"We would work shoulder to shoulder each day trying to help as many people as possible and then at night we could talk with each other. We'd begin as a group of strangers and end with life-long friends."
During this work she had come across New Zealanders and found she liked the sound of the rural based aspect.
"Even though I've lived in cities, I like smaller centres. Masterton is much more developed than I imagined."
She is "most impressed" with the new hospital and loves the fact that she can walk to work and into the town centre from where she lives.
Dr Ante loves gynaecology and has done a lot of laparoscopic surgery.
"It's such a positive area of medicine to work in," she says.
"You alleviate pain, solve problems, find solutions and there is often a special baby and a happy mother at the end of the process."