Rotorua: Hundreds of Māori nurses to gather for indigenous conference this week

Hundreds of Māori nurses will gather at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre for an official pōwhiri on Thursday. Photo / Andrew Warner

Hundreds of Māori nurses will gather in Rotorua this week for the annual Indigenous Nurses Conference Aotearoa.

The gathering has been organised by the Te Rūnanga o Aotearoa New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) union.

About 100 Māori nursing students would gather at a Rotorua marae on Wednesday, an NZNO statement said.

On Thursday, they would be joined by hundreds of registered working nurses from throughout the country at the official pōwhiri at Sir Howard Morrison Centre.

On Friday, all nurses would be in workshops and that evening, the Tapuhi Kaitiaki Awards - the Māori nurse awards - would be presented at Rydges Hotel.

The annual general meeting of Te Rūnanga would be held on Saturday morning.

It comes two weeks after about 800 Rotorua NZNO union members went on strike for 24 hours as they called for safe staffing.

About 4300 planned procedures and specialist appointments nationally were postponed because of the strike.