Who knew a discussion that revolves around death could be so lively?!

Through laughter and tears, more than 70 women were enthralled by Coroner Donna Llewell at our recent BWN lunch over rolling shared plates of delicious food.

Hosted at Fire, Mount Maunganui, we listened to the Coroner discuss her fascinating role, some of the challenges and rewards in her workplace and some of the quirky formalities as part of her role – including never being referred to by her first name during work hours and the etiquette of walking into rooms before anyone else.

Donna was appointed to the Coroners Court the day before national COVID-19 lockdown last year. In her role, she is responsible for investigating certain types of deaths (about 16% of all deaths in the country) – typically the unusual, the unexplained or unexpected. This includes deaths without known causes, suicide, motor vehicle accidents, occurring as a result of medical procedure, death in childbirth or death in official custody and care (such as prison or state institutions).  Coroners also look at deaths following other criminal or regulatory investigations (i.e. homicide, workplaces, health sector or transport like aviation and maritime).

While some of the details from the event can’t be shared publicly, due to the sensitivity of her work, Donna spoke generally about the importance of the Coroner’s role – particularly when it comes to the families of the deceased and the public interest.

She considers her role is to ‘speak’ on behalf of the tūpāpaku (deceased person), telling their story, their history and putting that information in writing for the family and generations to come to understand the circumstances.

Her role is integral in looking at death from a public perspective:  How can we take the circumstances of this death and make things better at an institutional, policy or legislative level? What can we do to prevent deaths like this in the future? What can a Coroner recommend for making things better?  How can we avoid such grief for other families?

As a self-described gregarious personality in her personal life, Donna says one of the biggest challenges in the role is balancing her public persona with her personality. In her role, she must be reserved, shouldn’t be physically welcoming and can’t be seen acting inappropriately in public – as she says, a glass of wine over lunch in a public setting would be a no-no.

The role is also very demanding: 24/7 rostered shift work and on-call, as you would expect, very physically and mentally taxing with diverse and complex information – not to mention, the workload is enormous, with around 200 active cases currently sitting with Donna to review.

That’s why staying true to her core values has been integral. She says, as a professional woman, throughout her career as a lawyer for 24 years and now as a judicial officer, she has three key values that she lives by:

• Walk the walk, talk the talk. In her mihi, Donna demonstrated she is bi-lingual (actually, she speaks four languages) and bi-cultural, and it’s something that is very important to her.
  “Know what you believe in and value. Know what you can make a difference in. Sometimes it’s tough, sometimes people don’t take you seriously. As long as you have your own story, I think that sets you in good stead.”
• Ethics: In any profession, know your ethics and know your boundaries.
  “My rule is it’s all about quality; I won’t do a half-pie job. I’ll provide the quality to each case that I can. There is no favoritism.”
• Work-life balance: Seems obvious, but as Donna says you can’t be mentally fit unless you are physically fit and – in her case – spiritually fit as well.
  “In my role, I take on the persona of kaitiaki (steward or caretaker) of the deceased. I follow tikanga in a way that keeps me safe. I also do meditation, yoga and go to the sea to bathe in the realm of Tangaroa to keep myself spiritually, mentally and physically fit.”

Other words of wisdom Donna imparted to our crowd were to not let yourself get pigeon-holed in your career. As she says, she never imagined she would become a Coroner, but with her skillset and experience it took her on a journey that led her to where she is today – and is excited to see where it leads her next.

Thank you to Donna for coming and sharing in a great kōrero with our BWN group. We hope our attendees enjoyed learning about her fascinating career!

Our next BWN lunch will be with surgeon Nicola Davis. You can find out more here.

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