Dr Tony Foley at his 90th birthday celebration. He died on September 11, aged 92. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Anthony Francis (Tony) Foley
February 6, 1926 — September 11, 2018.
Former long-serving Napier family doctor and health care leader Dr Tony Foley died peacefully at the age of 92 at St Joseph's Home, Auckland on September 11.
He was farewelled at a private funeral at St Joseph's Chapel, on September 17.
Born in Dunedin, with the family moving to Napier soon afterwards, Dr Foley was possibly one of the youngest at school when the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake struck on his first day at school, three days before his 5th birthday.
From Sacred Heart and Marist schools, he then boarded at Sacred Heart in Auckland before becoming a foundation pupil of St John's College in Hastings. He studied at the Otago University School of Medicine in Dunedin, where he met Maureen Murrow, whom he married in 1947.
He worked at Napier Hospital before establishing a General Practice in 1954, at Kennedy Rd, Marewa, which was attached to the family home.
At the age of 43, on September 6, 1969, he suffered a heart attack, but was quickly back at work to continue what was to become 50 years of service to his patients and medicine, retiring in 2001 at the age of 75.
He was the second in a continuing line of Foleys in prominent medical careers in New Zealand, being the son of Dr James Joseph (J.J.) Foley, a Medical Superintendent of both Napier and Hastings Memorial hospitals and whose name was given to a ward at the now long-gone Napier hospital and to a street in suburban Onekawa.
His brother Michael was also a doctor and they were followed into the career by three of Tony and Maureen's six children, including Dr Peter Foley, who died of cancer at the age of 58 in 2013, and who, among many roles, was chairman of the New Zealand Medical Association from 2007 to 2011.
They have been followed into the profession by Peter Foley's daughter, Lizzie, who is practising in Australia, and Christine's daughter, Tessa currently in her fifth year at Otago Medical School.
Tony Foley also undertook senior professional and health service roles. He was president of the New Zealand Medical Association in 1994, having served as the Hawke's Bay representative on the NZMA council, and for 14 years was a member of the Hawke's Bay Hospital Board (1977-1989) and the new Area Health Board (1989-1991), latterly as Deputy Chairman.
Well known for service across the community, he was doctor to the famous Hawke's Bay Ranfurly Shield rugby teams of 1966-69 during a long stint as honorary doctor with the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union, which started in 1955.
He had played rugby for Marist and became a president and a life member of Marist Brothers Old Boys Rugby Club. He was a president of the Napier West Rotary Club, of which he was a founding member in 1963, and also became president of the Probus club. A stalwart of St Patrick's Church, he was also a life member of the Catholic Church's Knights of the Southern Cross.
He was, not surprisingly, a staunch advocate for the retention of Napier Hospital, which closed in 1997 amid the centralisation of Hawke's Bay hospital services in Hastings.
At the time of his retirement he rued both a decline in the numbers of general practitioners and a burgeoning health sector bureaucracy he saw in such things as a new administration building at Hawke's Bay Hospital, in Hastings, for 120 office staff — "...and that's not all of them".
Among the thousands of patients, many of whom became patients of Peter Foley after his father's retirement, was Florence Finch, who became what is thought to have been the oldest person to live in Hawke's Bay. She died in 2007, aged 113.
Tony's wife of 63 years, Maureen, died on February 12, 2011, in Napier. They are survived by sons Michael, Mark and Paul, daughters Christine and Mary Anne, 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.