Quiet but with considerable mana: nurse Joyce Walters

Sister Joyce Walters, a registered nurse and a graduate of the Auckland Hospital Board School of Nursing, had a significant influence on developing the New Zealand plastic surgical nursing service.

Margaret Horsburgh and Our Health Journeys Curator Laura Howard, 2025

Quiet but with considerable mana: nurse Joyce Walters

Staff and patients outside Burwood Plastic Surgical Unit, December 1947. Sister Joyce Walters in centre. Image courtesy of the Sir William and Lady Lois Manchester Charitable Trust.

Joyce Walters, a registered nurse and a graduate of the Auckland Hospital Board School of Nursing, had a great influence on developing the New Zealand plastic surgical nursing service to what it is today. Hailing from Karaka in Auckland, she “joined up” to serve the war effort in a nursing capacity the day after WWII was declared in 1939 and was sent to Helwan, Egypt. Here she met William Manchester and oversaw the plastic surgery ward which he had established.

After returning to New Zealand on a furlough Joyce Walters once more joined Manchester at the plastic surgery unit at Burwood Hospital in Christchurch. She was so highly regarded for her wartime work that she was invited to return to England in 1946 to represent the New Zealand Nursing Corps for the Victory Parade in London marking the end of WWII.

Nurse Joyce Walters was so highly regarded for her wartime work that she was invited to return to England in 1946 to represent the New Zealand Nursing Corps for the Victory Parade in London marking the end of WWII.

Sister Joyce Walters. Image courtesy of the Sir William and Lady Lois Manchester Charitable Trust.

In 1950 Joyce Walters joined Manchester’s team in establishing the plastic surgery unit at Middlemore Hospital. Always aware of the team involved in patient care, Manchester insisted on having dedicated plastic surgery nurses. Joyce Walters was a key part of this; as the senior nurse in charge of plastic surgery patients at Middlemore Hospital until her retirement in 1967.

A quiet person but with considerable mana, Joyce Walters went on to create a course in plastic surgical nursing; the first of its kind in Auckland.

Find out more about the history of plastic surgery.

Discover New Zealand’s contribution to plastic surgery and the origins of the word ‘Plastic’.

Read about Sir William Manchester’s role in the establishment of plastics surgery in New Zealand.

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