Monina Hernandez

Infection Prevention and Control Clinical Nurse Specialist, Managed Isolation and Quarantine Facilities

Monina is a Filipino-born New Zealander, a global nurse-leader, a university lecturer, PhD candidate and board member of the Nursing Council of New Zealand, the regulatory authority responsible for the registration of nurses and competent and safe nursing care. Monina served as an elected director of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation – the lead nurses’ organisation representing close to 52,000 nursing staff all over New Zealand. She is also an elected member of the Leadership Succession Committee of Sigma Theta Tau International Honour Society of Nursing – the world’s second largest nursing organisation with more than 135,000 active leader-members in more than 90 countries around the world. Monina was a Parliamentary candidate in the 2020 general election where she led the party vote victory of her political party in East Coast Bays. She has governance and policy development experience in both public and not-for-profit roles and was an Emerging Governance Leader finalist for the Women on Boards, Governance New Zealand in 2019. Monina served as President of the Filipino Nurses Association of New Zealand, Inc since 2015 and is currently President of the Rotary Club of Hillsborough, Lynfield and Mount Roskill satellite group. She is a known leader in the Filipino community where she was given a Filipino-Kiwi Hero Award for a Health Professional. She is a nurse-midwife, infection control specialist, educator, and researcher by profession. She is an author of several nursing books in the Philippines and is about to publish a book about Filipino migrant nurse leaders.

Monina completed a Master of Nursing with honours degree from the University of Auckland and a postgraduate diploma in Health Sciences from the same university. She completed a postgraduate certificate in tertiary teaching from Massey University and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of the Philippines, the country’s top university which gave her its Most Outstanding Student award. Monina is currently completing her PhD at Massey University with research focused on fatigue and the nursing workforce.

With COVID19 raging all over world, Monina has been seconded to an Infection Prevention and Control Clinical Nurse Specialist position for the northern Managed Isolation and Quarantine Facilities (MIQF). In this leadership role, she provides expert hands-on infection prevention and control advice and education to the multi-agency staff of Auckland’s 18 MIQFs. Her responsibilities include policy development, quality improvement, implementation of infection control guidelines and engagement with multi-agency managers from the NZ Defence Forces, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, District Health Boards, Ministry of Social Development, NZ Police, international flight crew, private security, and others. Monina has years of experience as an infection prevention and control nurse specialist in two of Auckland’s district health boards.

Prior to secondment, Monina worked as a lecturer at Massey University where she taught and provided pastoral care to Bachelor of Nursing students, developed learning materials and led teaching teams across the Auckland, Palmerston North, and Wellington campuses. She also supervised master’s level clinical quality improvement projects and clinical research and is a member of various committees in her college.

Monina is passionate about representing the diverse and hard-working ethnic communities. She aspires for a truly inclusive society where everyone has equitable access to evidence-based, culturally safe services. Her work ethic is driven by the values of compassion, integrity, fairness, connectedness, respect, and excellence.