Taranaki office update – a welcome home and a fond farewell

Pinnacle has recently welcomed Dwayne Tamatea (known to us all as Tama) as the new practice network lead for Taranaki.

“I was born and raised in Ōpunake, but my love for basketball drew me to the Tairāwhiti region, where I played for the Gisborne Rising Suns basketball team, and did some coaching too. I kind of happily fell into a health career, and this opportunity with Pinnacle felt like the right time to bring the whānau home,” said Tama.

After two decades with Māori primary health provider Tūranga Health, Tama’s many experiences and achievements have prepared him for his Pinnacle senior leadership role, and he’s excited about sharing these experiences and learnings with his own iwi, Taranaki.

Beginning as an asthma educator, Tama loved the people, the work, and the focus on helping others. He quickly expanded his skills, working in the population health team before taking on the role of population health co-ordinator and, for the past decade, service delivery manager where he held a strong leadership and logistics role during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.

In addition to welcoming Tama, we’ve also recently said farewell to Tony Mottershead, general manager of strategic development and practice services from our Taranaki team. It was a difficult call for Tony, who is deeply passionate about primary health care, but due to family circumstances it was the right decision to make.

“The vision of the board and strengths of the leadership team, with Helen and Craig at the helm, give me confidence that the future of primary care nationally and across the Midlands rohe will be well served. Our strategic action plan will enable us to continue delivering high quality clinical services, advance our goals of building a thriving general practice network and ensure greater integration of community services with key stakeholders towards reducing health inequity,” said Tony in his farewell to the team.

The Taranaki-based practice development team of Barb Purdie and Vanessa Martin remain your key points of contact. They are backed by Tama as network lead for the region along with Carey Giddens, practice development team lead. 

(Photo credit: http://www.turangahealth.co.nz/news/farewell-dwayne-tama-tamatea-after-20-years)