New Year Honour for Maori health crusader testament to safe sleep project

Dr David Tipene-Leach has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and health. Photo / File

A Hawke's Bay doctor who is credited with helping save babies' lives through the wahakura (flax bassinet) project has been recognised for his services.

Dr David Tipene-Leach, who comes from Pōrangahau and is of Ngāti Kere and Ngāti Manuhiri descent, has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and health.

He is a general practitioner who has spent his working life promoting Māori health in rural and urban communities around Ruatoki, Whakatane, Gisborne, East Coast and Hastings.

This includes the wahakura project which has lead to a 30 per cent drop in infant mortality.

The Ministry of Health announced last year the infant safe sleep programme would run the project nationally.

Dr Tipene-Leach said receiving the honour was a great testament to the people who originated the wahakura project.

"I'm not sure how I feel, I don't go around looking for these things but in many ways it's all for those weavers and people who run it," he said.

"What it means is that somebody out there somewhere thought there was a great job done.

"It's a great achievement for the wahakura project."

An honour like this which helps provide acknowledgement and publicity to such a good cause is great, he said.

Dr Tipene-Leach has also researched, published and presented widely on diabetes among Māori, which led to his being awarded a Distinguished Fellowship from the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

He was inaugural chair of Te Ora, the Māori Medical Practitioners Association, has been a member of various medical review committees, has taught Māori health to medical students and public health to trainee medical officers in Micronesia, and is chairman of the Heretaunga Tamatea Treaty of Waitangi Claim Board.

He currently works at Eastern Institute of Technology as Professor of Māori and Indigenous Research and was recently elected chairman of the Te Ora (Māori Medical Practitioners Association) Board for a second time.

He has also undertaken innovative public health initiatives in the prevention of sudden
unexpected death in infancy (SUDI).