MEET MERCY’S CEO!
Paul Couper’s hospice story
Paul Couper knows only too well what it’s like to sit and hold the hand of a loved one in palliative care, watching them take their final breaths under the comforting eye of hospice staff.
The father of two and CEO of Auckland’s Mercy Hospice lost his wife Zarina to brain cancer four years ago and is now supporting others in similar situations.
Before his wife of 20 years spent her final weeks at Totara Hospice in South Auckland, the couple were busy working corporate jobs and living in their dream home with daughters Karissa and Tessa, then 14 and 9.
“The world was going along really nicely. We had the house in the country, the kids and the cats and dogs,” says Paul.
“We’d built a great future for the girls and had our whole life mapped out.”
In 2012 that abruptly changed when Zarina was suddenly diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer. “In the snap of your fingers and without any warning, life spiralled out of control,” he recalls.
Speaking with the Weekly, Paul explains how losing his wife in her early forties – and his work
history – led to his appointment at Mercy Hospice.
After working as a mechanical engineer, he sold medical ultrasound equipment in the health sector, before starting his own business in 2004.
“I decided to turn my hobby into a job and spent all my life savings starting a motorcycle shop,” he tells. “I thought it was a great idea, so I took a lease on a building in Papakura before I’d even told my wife!”
Paul says when he took Zarina to an old, empty petrol station one day and asked, “Do you like this? It’s my new bike shop,” she asked if he’d gone mad.
The business thrived, but after a few years of working all week for himself, he moved on.
“I sold up to retire and play golf in my mid-forties. That only lasted four months!”
Invited to work as the head of Philips Healthcare, Paul was on a work trip to Sydney when he received a call to say Zarina had keeled over in her office.
“I’d just got off the plane so turned around and flew straight back to New Zealand,” he tells.
Within a week of being at Middlemore Hospital, it was confirmed that Zarina had brain cancer. “She had two lots of surgery, trials, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, unfortunately, the prognosis for that disease, you’re lucky if you live two years. It was pretty tough.” Paul quit work to look after the girls and help nurse Zarina before she passed away while in hospice in June 2014.
“After that, I was committed to the girls, getting them into schools in the city to give them the right start to life,” explains Paul, who was still living out in the country.
“When they got on the bus for school, it was a bit like Forrest Gump!
I waved goodbye and spent the rest of the day rattling around in a big home by myself.”
In a bid to fill his time, Paul got into business consultancy for eight months, before he was told about the Mercy
Hospice CEO role.
“I wasn’t sure whether it’d be too raw being so close to home, but I spoke to board members and staff, and thought I could really make a difference with my business background.”
With Mercy Hospice currently requiring $4 million a year to stay operational, and Paul knowing from experience the importance of its services, he was determined to help.
‘ It’s here to care for patients and their families, and having been through it all, I can empathise’
“It’s here to care for patients and their families, and having been through it all, I can empathise,” says Paul, who has since remarried. “I didn’t know it at the time, but the experiences I’d had up until then allowed me to come and work for Hospice. Moving forward, I want to really make a difference.”