Several Waikato people featured in the New Year’s Honours list. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill spoke to one of them – Paula Baker – who was recognised for her services to health governance and the community.
Paula Baker, Braemar Charitable Trust.
Paula Baker is a great believer in networks.
Looking at the list of organisations she has been involved with – starting with Plunket as a new mother – to her new role at Waihikurangi Trust, the charitable arm of Ngāti Maniapoto’s post-settlement governance entity Te Nehenehenui, one thing stands out.
While they are all different entities, the work they do has that common thread – making a difference in people’s lives.
“I just felt that I could bring some different networks and contacts through the table with all the different organisations I know in health and knowing the great need in health, I felt that I could make a big contribution to a Māori organisation like Waihikurangi,” says Baker on why she applied to become a trustee.
Auckland-born Baker, 57, who now lives in Tamahere, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to health governance and the community.
The citation singled out her involvement with Braemar Charitable Trust where she became a trustee in 2014 and general manager in 2016.
The trust owns Braemar Hospital in Hamilton, one of the country’s leading private surgical hospitals and uses its profits to put back into the community on health-related initiatives like the free surgical days held last year which enabled 111 people to receive life-changing procedures.
“That was a dream come true for the trust,” says Baker.
“It was just amazing, really amazing, the feeling, the number of people who had volunteered and just looking at the people coming through the door and knowing that actually they were having a procedure they’d been waiting for quite a long time for is pretty mind boggling.
“It absolutely changes their lives. Some people got picked up for things that wouldn’t have been picked up if they hadn’t been there.”
When Doreen Singh of Innovative Personnel Solutions Ltd emailed Trust Manager Paula Baker it made her day. Doreen saw a post about Braemar Hospital trustee and anaesthetist Alan Goodey teaching anaesthetic technicians in Labasa Hospital in Fiji. Doreen grew up in Labasa and it inspired her to think about ways she could give back. Doreen says that she is blessed in her life and she is driven to help others. As a recruiter, she offered her skills in kind. This was an amazing example of how in-kind giving can support the good mahi we do because it’s not just money we need – support can come in many ways and we welcome time and skills from people in our community.
The patients come via GP referrals and off the Waikato Hospital waiting list, like the children who need tonsils out or grommets in and face more than two years’ pain.
The trust also provides free dental care via a mobile service. Baker says the link between oral and cardio health is not well understood.
A collaboration with Women’s Refuge this year will provide much needed dental care for women looking to reestablish themselves in the community.
There are never any regrets about going to work, she says.
“The most important thing is as soon as you talk to someone about it describe what you’re doing, you realise there are people that can help in some way.
“Actually, the power of the collective effort just blows my mind. Because you can provide one little slice, but someone can add something and then suddenly you’ve got this integrated programme that can make a difference.”
Baker’s route to the not for profit sector, a space “where I want to be,” started soon after her first daughter Kaitlyn was born 25 years ago.
She and husband Stuart – chair of DV Bryant Trust in Hamilton and born in Te Awamutu – met while they were both at Massey University, lived briefly in Auckland and then moved to the Waikato.
Baker volunteered and then worked for Plunket in the community finding her natural home in the health sector.
“You get so much more out of working in this space because of the amazing, inspiring people you work with every day knowing you are making a difference in some small way is very satisfying.”
She went on to become deputy chair of Hospice Waikato – chairing the Finance, Audit and Risk committee – and the New Zealand Dietitians Board and served on the boards of Presbyterian Support (Northern), Kerikeri Retirement Village and Community Living Trust in Hamilton.
Paula Baker
She also volunteered for St John as a member of Waikato Hospital’s Friends of the Emergency Department.
“That’s really a great thing to do. I’m going to go back and do that one day. Such a comfort to people in ED who aren’t used to being somewhere like that, particularly older people. It’s nice to be able to make a cup of tea and sit and talk.”
It was second daughter Emma, 23, who got her into cricket administration when she started playing the game at St Peter’s School in Cambridge. She went on to play for the Northern Districts women’s Braves team and has just been accepted into the Master of Nursing programme at Waikato University.
Kaitlyn is an environmental/natural resources engineer with WSP Engineering in Hamilton and has been working in North America where the family reunited for a holiday over Christmas-New Year before returning to Hamilton on January 6.
“Like you do, you volunteer, you help with what you can help with and that’s how I got involved in the Hamilton Cricket Association and then Northern Districts.”
She chaired the Hamilton association and then sat on ND’s board, standing down early last year when she felt herself getting stretched thin.
She is still on the Alandale Foundation, Waihikurangi, New Zealand Dental Council, Braemar, a trustee of Sky City Hamilton Community Trust and a member of the Waikato Community Lotteries distribution committee.
Baker describes them as providing a good balance.
“To be honest they all actually feed into each other.
“There’s a lot of great people in our region. There’s a lot of connections and willingness to find a solution to some of the big problems,” says Baker.
Paula Baker, centre, Braemar Charitable Trust Manager, with Dr Jason Ly, surgeon and Akarere Henry, Chief Executive South Waikato Pacific Islands Community Services Inc at South Waikato Health Centre in Tokoroa. Photo: Supplied.
