Mary Gordon
- Jocelyn Peach
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Nurse Leader [Ret]
Registered General and Obstetric Nurse, Diploma in Nursing
Mary Gordon was born on the West Coast, New Zealand. She went to school in Greymouth and prepared as a registered nurse West Coast School of Nursing, graduating in 1984. Mary worked as a registered nurse at Grey Base Hospital in a variety of clinical settings including acute medical, surgical, orthopaedic and operating theatre. From there Mary moved to Christchurch and worked in general medicine/respiratory and interventional cardiology at The Princess Margaret Hospital.
In 1990, Mary completed full-time study to complete the Advanced Diploma of Nursing at CPIT. Following this she returned to the West Coast where she established the health promotion service on the West Coast working with health protection, public health nurses and rural nurses providing health education and health promotion campaigns. In 1995, Mary  as the nursing leader for the West Coast while based in Greymouth she developed the nursing consultancy team that provided senior nursing leadership, professional direction and support to nurses throughout the West Coast region.
She worked in senior nurse roles in other regions: Perioperative Nurse Manager including the transition to the regional hospital in the Hawkes Bay; Operating Rooms at Hawkes Bay; Director of Patient Services and Nursing, South Canterbury 1995 to March 2000; Director of Nursing, Counties Manukau District Health Board April 2000 to August 2002 before returning to Canterbury region in 2002. Mary was appointed as Executive Director of Nursing and Executive Lead for Facilities for Canterbury District Health Board in September 2002 to October 2020.
Mary as a member of the Canterbury Executive Management Team, worked with her colleague Directors of Nursing and other nursing leaders within the Canterbury Health System to achieve the vision of an integrated health system for the people of Canterbury. She worked to bring together the South Island nurse leaders in an Alliancing model to ensure that there was a more integrated health system for the people of Canterbury and the wider South Island. Together they built a strong nursing culture of “Growing our own, significantly increasing the new graduate workforce and advancing and enabling nurses across our region to be a vibrant and sustainable nursing workforce for the future. Mary chaired two of the SI Alliances: SI Workforce Hub (also known as SI Regional Training Hub) and the SI Quality & Safety Alliance. As the Executive Lead for Facilities Management Mary was responsible for leading the major development and the repair of a number of facilities and essential infrastructure across all the four hospital sites within Christchurch and the wider Canterbury region following the Canterbury Earthquakes. Including the replacement of the 100-year-old Kaikoura Hospital that was completed only a few months before the Kaikoura Earthquake.
Of note, Mary provided strong leadership as part of the Canterbury Incident Management Team during the emergency response for the Canterbury region during the Christchurch major earthquakes [4th September 2010 and 22nd February 2011], the Kaikoura Earthquake [14th November 2016] and Mosque attacks in March 2019 in which 50 people were killed. She showed strength and resilience working with the health, civil defence and other agencies.
Mary was a member of Nurse Executives of NZ, College of Nurses, Aotearoa, Lead Directors of Nursing and was a member of the National Health Board (2009-2014), appointed by the Minister of Health who sought “greater clinical leadership in the public health service as well as a sharper national focus on District Health Boards and the Ministry of Health working together."
Mary has made a significant contribution to nursing over the past thirty-five years. She has been a strong, steady and thoughtful professional through major challenges and has been respected and appreciated for her strategic vision.
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