Strong Voices

Maureen Wood, a courageous, committed and intelligent leader in IHC and beyond, died in October. Ralph Jones, IHC Group Chief Executive, paid tribute.

The health and disability campaigner will remain a legend in IHC and in West Auckland for her extraordinary commitment to people with intellectual disabilities and her community.

As a young mother, Maureen challenged the medical establishment, which was separating disabled children from their parents. Her path was set when her eldest daughter, Jackie, was born in 1958 with an intellectual disability. Maureen joined IHC in 1961 and found people who shared her views. Along with caring for Jackie, and Jackie’s four younger siblings, she used her huge reserves of energy to work for the welfare of other people with disabilities and their families.

Maureen and her husband Ted rejected institutional care for Jackie, resisting the pressure that was put on parents by the medical community and society to have their children admitted to psychiatric and psychopaedic institutions. “The bond was broken with families and it’s very hard to get that bond back again,” Maureen said in 2011 on becoming an IHC New Zealand Life Member. “I feel with IHC it’s my family. It’s been my family for 50 years. IHC is my choice. It’s part of me.”

During the 1980s and 1990s Maureen lobbied for institutions to be closed, including Auckland’s Carrington Hospital, and for people with disabilities to live in the community. She said she would have lobbied “forever” to see them shut down. Maureen was also instrumental in getting the first hostels and workshops established in West Auckland for people with intellectual disabilities.

In 2018 Maureen described the guilt she felt when Jackie finally went to live in residential care in 1987. Ted had died suddenly in 1985 and Maureen had struggled on for two years before making the decision. “You feel guilty all the time. You sort of feel like you should be there looking after her.”

From that time – and now campaigning without Ted – Maureen made sure that the care and services Jackie and others with intellectual disabilities received were good quality. From 2001 until early 2019 she evaluated a range of residential and other disability services for auditing agencies contracted by the Ministry of Health.

Maureen served as the IHC West Auckland Branch President for 23 years, taking over from Ted. She served on the New Zealand Council of IHC from 1985 until 2008. Then she took a break from leadership but stayed on the local committee, only to return as IHC West Central Auckland Association Chair in 2016 – a position she held until 2021. Her daughter Sharon took over the role before the Association went into recess in October 2023.

Maureen was always involved in addressing wider community health issues. Her objective for many years was to make sure that communities had a voice in developing their local health services. She was still speaking out after six decades in the fast-growing West Auckland community dominated by a younger population. Friends and colleagues say that Maureen never gave up. With a vast knowledge of the health and disability sector she had the enviable ability to size up a problem and find a solution.

As Chair of Waitakere Health Link, she campaigned hard for improvements at Waitakere Hospital – free ambulances in 2001 and a full 24-hour emergency service in 2011. In 2018 she challenged high parking charges at the hospital, and this resulted in a cheaper weekly ticket for patients and visitors. She served as a community representative on the HealthWest Primary Health Organisation Board from 2003 until 2011.

She reminded us by her example that it is essential to care for the most vulnerable members of our society and to remember that it is their right to have voices, to be included in our communities and to live the best lives they can.

Maureen was a live wire – so much fun and energy at our AGMs and get-togethers – and she will be deeply missed. Our thoughts remain with her family and friends of whom many are part of IHC.

In the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List Maureen was awarded an MNZM in recognition of her lifetime’s work.

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Caption: Maureen Wood receives her MNZM from Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy.