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New Lakes Hospital operations manager is community and team focused

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An early passion for health and wellbeing and a talent for commerce and marketing have brought Emily Nelson, the newly appointed Operations Manager for Lakes District Hospital (LDH), almost full circle.

Emily joins the LDH team after two and a half years working as a Health Promotion Advisor at Public Health South and replaces former Operations Manager Janeen Holmes, who retired shortly after lockdown.

Emily completed a Bachelor of Physical Education and a Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing) at Otago University.  Then, after a stint at Lion Breweries as a marketing graduate, she travelled the world working in marketing roles including brand strategy and new product development.

She and husband Sam, along with baby in tow returned to New Zealand from London, and expanded the family before moving to Queenstown ten years ago.

After a variety of marketing roles, Emily decided to retrain and get back into a career in health and wellbeing, bringing her back to her early passion.

She spent the next three years commuting to Auckland to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Health at Auckland University.  This led to the role of Health Promotion Advisor with Public Health South, which included mental health, housing, air quality and smoke free, and workplace health promotion.

Emily also credits her Public Health role with the opportunity to engage with people and key stakeholders like Councils in the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago.  She currently chairs the Mental Health and Addiction Network for Central Lakes and sits on the Network Leadership Group and is a representative on the Central Lakes Locality Network. 

She says these groups provide opportunities for understanding the needs of the community and district going forward, and she is keen to further connect the hospital and healthcare into the community too.

“The hospital – and health system – plays such an important role in our community. The team did a tremendous job as we encountered our first cases of COVID-19 in the district, and continues to support our people as we work through the challenges the community continues to face. I’m really proud to be part of that, and to work in partnership with all the other agencies and health care providers to deliver great care to our people.”