Robina (Ruby) Cameron MBE

Robina (Ruby) Cameron lived her life serving others during her distinguished nursing career which touched people around the globe. Perhaps her greatest legacy though is being part of the establishment of the Women’s Health League which improved health outcomes for wāhine Māori and their children in particular in the wider Bay of Plenty area.

Robina was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 15 April 1892. In 1911 she travelled to Aotearoa with her five sisters and began her nursing training at Cook Hospital in Gisborne. By 1915 she was qualified and soon after travelled to England to join Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. She spent one year working in the No1 War Hospital in Reading before being dispatched to Cairo and was one of the first nurses to cross the Suez Canal when she was transferred to Palestine. 

Nurse Cameron was placed in charge of massage and electrical treatment in a hospital in the Sinai Desert and later worked at Gaza and Jerusalem - being on the first hospital train to enter the Holy City. 

Upon arriving in New Zealand Nurse Cameron began working as a native district nurse for the Health Department, based in Ōpōtiki. Horseback was her main form of transport to travel the Bay of Plenty coast for 11 years. She took a short break to gain her midwifery qualification in Christchurch. In 1931 she became the district nurse based in Rotorua, covering a large area which included Whakatane, Taupō, Putaruru, Rotoma and Otaramarae. Cameron was known as the ‘little woman in the Model T Ford’.

Her interest and desire to help Māori welfare concerns began and this became the main focus of her work until her retirement in 1949. 

With the blessing and support of Te Arawa elders clinics on health, hygiene and home-making skills were held on marae to educate wāhine Māori. This initiative snowballed and committees were formed around the district. These committees grew in strength and improved health outcomes for women and their whānau.

Te Ropu o te Ora, The Women’s Health League, was founded at a large hui at Tunohopu Marae on 2 September 1937. By this point Nurse Cameron was fondly known as ‘Kamerana’ and she became president, a position which she held for the remainder of her life. 

Focuses of the league included nutrition, housing, infant care and the preservation of traditional arts. The league fought for a free hospital service and the teaching of Te Reo Māori in schools. 

The league expanded to nearby districts. A Te Arawa leader, Te Mare Te Heuheu, said “Kamerana is the nail who has joined Te Arawa, and the flax is Te Rōpū o the Ora, which will bind it together for all time”. In 1939 she made the move to Hamilton to become a nurse inspector, she was later promoted to senior nurse inspector in Auckland until 1947. 

Cameron was then sent by the Department of Labour to London to facilitate an immigration campaign for nurses, nurse aids and domestics. She continued to keep in touch with the league. Cameron returned to New Zealand in 1949 and retired and moved to Rotorua in 1955. A number of issues including the disruption of war had seen the league become less active but Cameron worked to revive it. 

The Government attempted to bring the league under its control but Cameron was part of a group who met with Te Rangiātahua Royal, then controller of Māori welfare, to express the league’s desire to remain autonomous and voluntary. 

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During her career Nurse Cameron had been awarded the British War Medal, Victory Medal, Royal Red Cross, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve Qualification Badge, NZ Registered Nurse Five Pointed Star Medal as well as being made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1938. Her service to Māori was detailed in great length upon the awarding of the MBE in the Poverty Bay Herald and Manawatu Standard, among others. 

She died in 1971, aged 79-years-old. In 1986 the Nurse Cameron Memorial Health Centre, also known as the Tūnohopū Health Centre was opened at Ohinemutu.