September 07, 2021
Nuku wins Human Rights and Nursing Award
Nurses Organisation kaiwhakahaere and president Kerri Nuku says she accepted an international award as a way to acknowledge the hard work being done by many other people behind the scenes.
Ms Nuku received the Human Rights and Nursing Award given by the International Care Ethics Observatory at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
This year’s other recipient was Suman Shrestha, the professional lead for critical care at the Royal College of Nursing, who was acknowledged for his contribution to the development of health and social care both in Nepal and the UK.
Ms Nuku says in her almost 30 years in nursing she has seen a growth in the number of Māori nurses and in their capacity, but they still lag in political power.
“And what we often see and we saw it back in the 1900s is that the political voice for nursing is often dominated by men, or male Māori, so we haven’t got our right place yet to assert our authority and tino rangatiratanga in a way that we need to be better advocates of the healthcare system,” she says.
Kerri Nuku says problems nurses face often come down to power, privilege and gender inequity.