International Year of the Nurse & Midwife: Peta

10 Dec 2020, 08:54

No one could ever say Mental Health Nurse Director Peta Rowden wasn’t a driven individual. Her achievements from such a young age stem from her ambition to never quit, live by her values and a desire to understand the wider health system so she could be a better nurse and leader.

Always one to speak up and share her opinions, Peta quips she was once told by her nursing student colleagues that she should have become a politician.

“Well, leadership seems to come naturally for me. I was on the school council and would always speak up and have my say,” she laughs.

Giving birth to her first child during the third and final year of her nursing degree wasn’t quite what Peta had planned, but she sat her final exams, spent six months getting to grips with becoming a new mum then started
accepting shifts within an aged residential care home where she would spend the first six years of her nursing career.

“I didn’t think I was going to like working within aged residential care at such a young age, but you know what, I absolutely loved it and I learnt so much,” she said.

Mental health nursing, however, was her first love – a nursing specialty she discovered while on nurse training placement at Tokanui Hospital and a specialty she remains deeply committed to.

“It just clicked with me. I think that’s because there was a mixture of the clinical side of nursing but also a lot of time spent with patients holistically, just talking with them, getting to know them – that was hugely important to me.”

Not one to shy away from hard work or trying her hand at new things, Peta has dedicated her career to mental health and wellbeing. Very early on in her career she became a clinical nurse manager for a non-government
organisation in New Plymouth under an “amazingly talented CEO who taught me a lot about the business side of health care” and later ventured into the community mental health space with strong linkages between secondary care and primary care.

After ten years as a member of Napier’s Community Mental Health team, Peta was asked to fill the role of DHB’s Nurse Director Mental Health on secondment to cover David Warrington while he was on annual leave.

“I was shocked, I didn’t even know that David knew my name. But I worked on the mantra that if do your job well and put yourself forward in terms of service improvement, people might take notice.”

Turns out Peta ended up in the role permanently when David took on a new opportunity at the DHB – a role she says she absolutely loves thanks to the daily challenges and planning, all while still being able to keep her finger on the pulse in terms of patient care and wellbeing, and quality improvement.

Peta says hard work is what she has tried to instil in her four children — yes, she has raised four children as a working mother, and somehow found the time to take on higher education studies, graduating from Victoria
University (Wellington) with a Masters of Nursing in 2012.

“My husband and I are incredibly blessed, we have such a supportive family and we have been very lucky to have that support around us.

“There is also so much flexibility in nursing and shifts – it’s a wonderful career that can take you anywhere around the world or into roles you never dreamed of,” she says, having recently filled in for the Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer who was on holiday.

Peta’s ambition to be an even better leader is strong and with the support of colleagues and family behind her, she says she is considering undertaking more study, a Master of Business Administration (MBA), in the future.

“I’ve always been ambitious, thinking about opportunities and my next steps, and I think I’d like to grow my business knowledge and one day work at a national level” she said.

“I have four healthy children, an incredibly supportive husband and a career I am so passionate about. I feel incredibly blessed.”