Strategic Direction Te Ahunga Rautaki

Tēnā koutou katoa ko Trevor Simpson toku ingoa 
I'm the Kaituruki Director Māori at Te Pātaka Whaioranga - Pharmac

I'm here today to talk to you about Pharmac's vision; He Rongoā Pai, He Ahu Pae Ora.

The vision is broken up into five key facets. The first one is about our whakapapa and history. Secondly, we'll touch on how our vision correlates to Māori world views. The third aspect is around our core work and our priorities how that fits into this vision. Fourthly, we have ngā uaratanga o Te Pātaka o Whaioranga - that's our values and how they are interlinked into this particular vision and also our work in Pae Ora, which is why we're all here across the health system to work together to achieve pae ora itself.

So, He Rongoā Pai, the first part of our vision, is directly related to some of the work we've done in the past - that is around rongoā itself. So what we know with the word rongoā is that it's medicines and devices, broadly speaking, that are all derived from the natural environment in which we all find ourselves. So on that basis we know that from a Māori conceptualization that all of our medicines and devices are somehow drawn from the things that we have in nature. Weaving in the whakapapa and the mauri and the history of this organisation in a way that pays homage to those who have come before us, the work that they've done for this organisation, and building up to what we see ourselves as right now in this very important context that we find ourselves in. We have the second part of the vision which is, He Ahu Pae Ora. What we have in there is a very important word ahu. So ahu can be broadly broken into two distinct pieces in terms of what it means in te reo Māori. The word ahu can mean moving in a particular direction, pointing in a particular direction, moving forward, moving towards something. Another meaning of ahu is drawn from Māori creation mythology and that speaks of the deity of Hineahuone, the first human being and her relationship with Tane Mahuta, the god of the forest, and the story that tells us about how we are all derived genealogically from those two deities. And so Hineahuone is not only the first woman created but also the very first human being from whom we all come. Another important facet around the word ahu is the word ahurewa. An ahurewa is an expert in something, someone who leads from the front, who decides the, the direction of travel for the rest of the group. These people were often tohunga, or people with specific expertise but they also had knowledge and information that everybody needed in order to be led in the right direction. This touches on some of the things we do within this organisation which is around sourcing expertise, working together to figure out together what's the best way forward. The next part is around ngā uaratanga o Te Pātaka Whaioranga - Pharmac.

Those are our values and as we know the values set the foundations for not only the work we do but how we should do it. And they're very specific and we've ensured that those values are specifically woven into, at least broadly, into the context of this vision that we now have in front of us. So we're all here doing our work because of the Pae Ora Act, that is the Healthy Futures Act of 2022. As we all know, all of the work that we're doing in the health system is drawn from that particular document - no less so for Te Pātaka Whaioranga - Pharmac. What it asks us to do is work in a more integrated way with the rest of the system. And in doing so we play our very important part in the provision of medicines and devices upon which some of the drivers within the health sector depend. So, with that in mind, we're here with the rest of the system to work towards health and well-being for everybody who lives in this country. So our vision very much draws on the idea of navigation and so what we did in terms of forming the vision, as well as the values, is that we were really - use a metaphor - preparing our waka - you know - our sea fairing vessel, to make it seaworthy but also to enable us to move in a certain direction with confidence. And just to remind everybody our vision for Te Pātaka Whaioranga - Pharmac is He Rongoā Pai, He Ahu Pae Ora