GP award finalist still doing it for Mum “Like everyone else, I wanted to be a surgeon.”
Author Alan Perrott
The destiny of Tagaloa Andrew Chan-Mow, the youngest of 11 children, was decided from the day he was born.
“It was Mum. I’m not sure why, but she decided I was the one who was going to help people. All my brothers and sisters could look after the business stuff; I was going to go to medical school.”
The co-founding specialist GP at South Seas Healthcare in Ōtara is a finalist for Medtech General Practitioner of the Year at the 2026 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards | He Tohu Mauri Ora.
Doing it for Mum
The recognition is as much a surprise as it is poignant. His mother, Lotte Chan-Mow, died in Samoa in April, just a few weeks after her 100th birthday.
“She grew up in poverty, but she was always about giving back to people, church, family and community. They were the biggest things in her life, and a big part of why she pushed me to go to medical school.”
It meant knuckling down while his siblings played. Everything depended on his school marks, but his efforts paid off with a scholarship to the University of Otago.
“This was the 1980s. The bottom two specialities were general practice and psychiatry, so, like everyone else, I wanted to be a surgeon.”
But first, the conditions of his scholarship meant he had to return to Samoa to spend three years in public hospitals. Then he got married and returned to New Zealand, where he worked another four years in Auckland and Palmerston North before landing at the Southern Cross accident and medical centre in Remuera.
On deck from day one
Then in 1998, a group of Pacific clinicians banded together to open a clinic in south Auckland.
A timely retirement offered up a good location, and Dr Chan-Mow was on deck for opening day. The premises were small, and there was no budget for marketing, but optimism was high when someone walked in straight away.
“Hey, is this the TAB?”
He is hugely proud of what the team has built and how the practice has embedded itself in local families. An audit found about 85 per cent of the practice’s current patients aged over 70 have been with South Seas since about 1999.
The current practice manager was enrolled by her mum when she was one.
All he wants to see change is funding. Money is a constant challenge and stress in an area with huge unmet need. His response remains: “Do it and find the money later.”
Now clinical director, Dr Chan-Mow has no plans to go anywhere. After all, he’s still on a promise to Mum: “I’ll probably be buried here one day.”
South Seas Healthcare was named GenPro General Practice of the Year at the 2021 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards.
The New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards | He Tohu Mauri Ora will be awarded on 17 October at a gala awards ceremony in Auckland. More information can be found here.
Published by Pharmacy Today
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