Dr Ashley Bloomfield comes home for Hawke's Bay farewell

Dr Ashley Bloomfield and pounamu at Pukemokimoki Marae on Tuesday, at right Ngati Kahungunu deputy chair JB Heperi. Photo / Sally Crown.

Director-General of Health and Covid-19 daily updates frontman Dr Ashley Bloomfield has returned to some of his roots for a farewell from his job on a Napier marae less than a kilometre from his first home.

Dr Bloomfield was born in Napier, spent his first six years living with his parents in Bestall St, Maraenui, and had about a year at Maraenui School before the family moved to Wellington suburb Tawa.

He went to Scots College, leaving at the age of 17 to go to medical school in Auckland, eventually becoming a public health specialist and being appointed Director General of Health in 2018..

His poroporoaki on Tuesday at Pukemokimoki Marae, little more than a couple of stones' throws from where he first lived, became part of a schedule for a day visiting the Bay and Hawke's Bay Soldiers Memorial Hospital.

"I also spent time at Pukemokimoki Marae, alongside staff from the Te Whatu Ora Hawke's Bay (formerly Hawke's Bay DHB)," he said. "It was a privilege to be welcomed by Ngati Kahungungu and onto the Marae and experience the hospitality of the Marae."

He was accompanied onto the marae by deputy director-general of health John Whaanga, who hails from Nuhaka, and Te Whatu Ora kaumatua Hawira Hape.

It included a hui at the Marae with Hawke's Bay's district executive leadership team, public health staff, post settlement group entities chairs and chief executives, Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Inc, Māori Health providers and Iwi Māori Partnership Board members and a range of community representatives including the Mayors of Napier and Hastings.

He told Hawke's Bay Today: "The past four years have been a busy and very rewarding time for me and I'm proud of what New Zealand's health sector has achieved. Some of our greatest achievements have been around the response to the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly seeing so many New Zealanders vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19."

"Together the country has worked together to fight COVID-19 to this point and put us in the best position possible to respond to new variants or a second wave," he said. "No one entity could do this alone – it's been very much a team effort."

Whether he and family may, eventually, move back to Hawke's Bay is at question, Dr Bloomfield saying: "Following my departure from the Ministry at the end of this month, I am taking some time out, tackling some of the to-do list around home, which has been growing, and taking time to decide on my next move."

Te Whatu Ora Hawke's Bay executive director of Maori health Patrick Le Geyt initiated the marae approach after learning of the visit to Hawke's Bay, but was unable to attend the poroporoaki.

He said it was a true Ngati Kahungunu response to the way Dr Bloomfield and the ministry had worked together with the DHB, iwi and local body leaders in the Covid-19 response, and the director-general's respect for the mana of the iwi and the marae in that if he was to have such a poroporoaki he wished to have it back where he had come from.

Dr Bloomfield became a household name during the pandemic in a way that no other Director-General of Health had, but then, says Le Geyt, he had been the first DG in a pandemic.

Himself involved in the health industry for more than 25 years, Le Geyt said that as a public health specialist Dr Bloomfield was the person "you'd want at the front in a pandemic".