Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell The main role of the Health and Disability Commissioner is to ensure that rights of consumers are upheld. This includes making sure that complaints about health or disability service providers are taken care of fairly and efficiently. Morag McDowell, Health and Disability Commissioner, began her term in September 2020. Morag takes up the role after serving nearly 13 years as a Coroner based in Auckland. She was formerly a Crown Prosecutor, Director of Proceedings for the Health and Disability Commissioner’s Office, and a Senior Legal Adviser at Crown Law. Since completing her Master of Laws degree, her legal practice has had a strong focus on healthcare law, and she has appeared in different courts and tribunals on a variety of health-related litigation. She has also lectured and published on a range of medico-legal issues. Morag is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of health and disability services consumers where the Code sets the benchmark for good practice, and opportunities for learning and quality improvement are embraced. She strongly values the importance of fair, timely, transparent, and culturally appropriate processes where people are engaged, and given the opportunity to be heard.

Dr Bloomfield qualified in medicine at the University of Auckland in 1990 and after several years of clinical work specialised in public health medicine. His particular area of professional interest is non-communicable disease prevention and control, and he spent 2011 at the World Health Organization in Geneva working on this topic at a global level. Dr Bloomfield was Chief Executive at Hutt Valley District Health Board from 2015 to 2018. Prior to that, he held a number of senior leadership roles within the Ministry of Health.

Helen Paterson is a senior lecturer at Dunedin School of Medicine and the Codirector of the womans health bus. She likes to mountain bike and ski when she is not working to reduce inequities in women's health care with a focus on contraception and abortion. Helen started daydreaming about a Woman’s Health Bus in 2015, and is a co-director for this venture. As well as being a clinical and operating gynaecologist, Helen is passionate about education. Helen is an active educator for nurses, GPs and specialists. https://www.womanshealth.nz/about

Professor Bev Lawton (ONZM), nō Ngāti Porou, is the founder/director of Te Tātai Hauora o Hine (the Centre for Women’s Health Research) at Victoria University of Wellington. She was appointed an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit by the Queen for services to women’s health in 2005, made a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal College of General Practice in 2017, awarded the Australasian Menopause Society Award for contributions to women’s health, and most recently awarded the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Māori Women’s Health Award. Bev previously worked as a general practitioner in Wellington for 17 years and co-founded the Wellington Menopause Clinic. These experiences led to an interest in research to answer the many questions relevant to women’s health and inequalities. Research Interests • Māori health and inequalities • Kaupapa Māori research in health • Sexual and reproductive health • Menopause • Clinical trials • Maternal and infant health Bev's work seeks to reduce preventable harm and death for Māori and non-Māori women, their children and whānau (family). With a kaupapa Māori lens she focuses on clinical care pathways, systems and structural determinants of health to identify how these can better perform for women, babies and whānau. Her research on women’s and children’s health has led to changes in policy and practice in NZ and internationally. This includes informing health policy on cervical screening, the establishment of the Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM) monitoring program in Aotearoa New Zealand, improved systems for maternal health with regards to post-partum contraception, accident and emergency management of SMM and the establishment of SMM audit in Sri Lanka.

She has a long and proven track record for being an industry and community champion for Equal Pay and Gender Equality. Angela has worked in London, Tokyo, Melbourne, Bangkok, Wellington and Auckland across a number of senior marketing and communications roles. Angela has led high-performing teams in the corporate, arts and government sectors and is the co-founder of the Ace Lady Network, Gender Justice Collective and Project Gender. From 2016 – 2020 she was the founder and the director of Double Denim, an internationally award-winning agency and is currently the Head of Marketing at Auckland Council. In 2021 she developed and led ‘Trade Careers’ – a pioneering project to get more women into the trades. In 2017, 2018 and 2022, Angela was a finalist in the Women of Influence Awards, recognizing leaders and change-makers within New Zealand, for her work supporting gender equity and identifying ways in which businesses can improve gender relations in the workplace and help unlock the power of the $28 trillion female economy.

I am the Clinical Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Christchurch Women's hospital where I have been working as a generalist consultant since 2011 . I enjoy a broad range of interests across O and G with an interest in laparoscopic surgery. I am a representative for Aotearoa on the council of RANZCOG and am passionate about trying to achieve national consistency and equity in health care for wāhine both in terms of access , treatment and outcomes.

Susie Ferguson's been getting up early for more than 8 years to co-host RNZ's Morning Report. While at RNZ she's also presented the immediate aftermath of the Kaikoura and Christchurch earthquakes, and anchored the global coverage of the remembrance service one week on from the Christchurch shootings. Before moving to New Zealand Susie spent 6 years as a war correspondent around the world, reporting on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami. She's an accomplished radio documentary and podcast maker, including creating The Unthinkable which won gold at the 2021 New York Radio Festivals. She's also an ambassador for Endometriosis NZ, after speaking publicly about having a hysterectomy at the age of 40.