Another award for Lance O'Sullivan

Dr Lance O'Sullivan overseeing the launch of MOKO at Te Hapua School in 2014. Photo/Petrina Hodgson

Kaitaia GP Dr Lance O'Sullivan (Te Rāwara, Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Maru), widely admired for his energetic Māori health advocacy, will be presented with a Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of Auckland for his leadership and innovation tomorrow evening.

"It's a huge honour to get this award, and I'm really proud of the university and the medical education I had there," Dr O'Sullivan said.

"This is a milestone for me - I was the first to attend university from my father's family, and to be considered a worthy graduate of this university is an incredible honour."

Dr O'Sullivan's story is well known, from his angry youth to the rocky road of medical school and finally graduating in 2002.

He specialised as a GP, focusing on improving Māori health, and has led the way in delivering medtech solutions to help combat poor access to healthcare for often isolated low-income communities, driven by a passionate belief in equal access to healthcare and the need to overcome the impact of child poverty.

He and his wife Tracy have worked hard to achieve that in the Far North, and now they are helping it spread south.

"It's this mahi that he leads every day, working to help alleviate child poverty and to help Māori, especially Māori rangatahi, to get the healthcare they need," a university spokesman said.

"One of the diseases of poverty in New Zealand is rheumatic fever. We have one of the highest rates in the developed world. It's really a Third World disease, wiped out in most developed countries.

"Prevention of rheumatic fever can stop a child developing life-changing rheumatic heart disease.

When Lance and Tracy arrived in Kaitaia rheumatic fever was rife in the community, and children (usually Māori children) who had had several bouts of rheumatic fever were developing rheumatic heart disease.

"Lance and Tracy established healthcare company Navilluso Medical, which set up the MOKO Foundation in 2013, and the MOKO programme, a school-based service focused on preventing rheumatic fever in mainly Māori children."

The MOKO programme was introduced to Far North primary schools, taking throat swabs of any children presenting with sore throats, an early indicator of rheumatic fever. Those who tested positive for strep A were started on a course of oral penicillin to stop it at that early stage.

Dr O'Sullivan had gone further, working to ensure the living conditions of his young patients were improved. In his now home town of Kaitaia he fostered local groups to help improve whanau homes too, making them warm and healthy.

Now mobile technology had enabled iMOKO, the digital cloud-based phone app version of the programme, to spread faster and further, low-income Far North families staying connected with prepaid broadband.

iMOKO was now in 40 primary schools, kōhanga reo and early childhood centres, involving more than 20,000 young people in Northland and Auckland.

"Dr O'Sullivan spends a good deal of time on the road, persuading schools to enrol in the scheme, presenting on strep A, rheumatic fever, how iMOKO works and how it can help children and school communities," the spokesman said.

"His vision is to provide iMOKO services to 300,000 children across New Zealand in the next three years. It's this commitment to equal access to healthcare for all New Zealanders, plus the long hours he puts in to make it happen in the community, that has earned him a reputation as one of New Zealand's most admired healthcare leaders."

Other Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are Carol Hirschfeld BSA, media; Ian Hunter BSc, MSc, PhD, Hatsopolous Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology; Lisa Reihana BFA (Ngapuhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Tu), the arts; and Erna Takazawa BOptom, Samoa's first and only optometrist.