Luk Chin
Cambridge’s Dr Luk Sun Chin is characteristically humble about his King’s Birthday Honour.
Luk Chin has been honoured in the King’s Birthday Honours. Photo: Viv Posselt
The new Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) recipient found it easy to keep it secret for the past few weeks. He breathed a word to no-one… even his immediate family were kept in the dark.
“I was a little embarrassed, to be honest,” he said, “because this achievement is not only for myself, it’s for all the people who have supported me along the way.”
Chin, who was awarded the MNZM for services to health and harness racing, underestimates his impact on New Zealand, and on this region, in particular. His citation reveals he has helped expand private health services in Waikato, bringing $150 million in investment over the past 40 years.
He has contributed more than 50 years as an anaesthetist, pain and intensive care specialist, and is still working full time as an anaesthetist at the lofty age of 83. He helped establish Waikato Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and Pain Service in 1975 – at the time only the second in the country.
The citation continues: “In 1991, he co-led the development of the Anglesea Medical Centre in Hamilton, Waikato’s first same day surgical unit, now operating as an elective surgical hospital. He has since contributed towards the establishment of further private healthcare facilities in the region, including in Tauranga, Pukekohe and Cambridge. He has also created a fund to provide financial assistance for future registrars wanting to advance their studies of anaesthetics.”
Luk Chin, in orange and brown, back in the field guiding Jasinova, has time to peek to see Alana and Safrakova leading with a lap to go. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
All of that accounts for just part of Chin’s MNZM. His services to harness racing are equally impressive – and have won him awards in that field – despite the fact he sees that as a hobby-turned passion that he took up decades ago simply to find something to occupy his leisure time.
He is New Zealand’s oldest licensed harness racing trainer and driver and the first to breed and train 100 winners. His tally is now well over 200. He has never purchased a horse, something he explains by saying it was his late father’s interest in horses that resulted in his and his brother’s early involvement, and thus into him taking on his first breeding mare. The rest, they say, is history. Today, Chin is still active in the industry, although he is down to four racers currently, with another four youngsters coming up.
Reserved as he is about the award, Dunedin-born Chin delights in the fact he is not the first in his family to be recognised in this way. His father, Chin Bing Foon, who was born in Canton in 1910 and came to New Zealand in 1925, became a well-known businessman in Dunedin and was awarded an MBE in 1986 for services to the community.
One of the best set of eyes in the business for picking champions is Tamahere’s Luk Chin, still working as an anaesthetist and pain specialist at 83. He has also trained four winners this season with his last driving victory coming in October last year. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
The younger Chin’s medical career evolved naturally – there are now over 20 people in the extended family working in the medical field.
“I have had a wonderful career in medicine. I graduated in 1967 and moved into anaesthesiology just as that field was undergoing tremendous development. I worked overseas for several years… the changes that came in around that time revolutionised anaesthesiology. It enabled us to do longer surgeries safely, but that, in turn, meant we had to develop better post-operative practices, such as intensive care and better pain relief.”
Chin was on the ground floor of those developments in New Zealand. He has since tried to work on ways to enhance the country’s healthcare facilities, particularly as New Zealand struggles to meet the needs of a growing population with insufficient medical personnel.
A proposed Cambridge Health Hub is part of that plan. Chin hopes that when it is completed, it will help take elective work from Waikato Hospital, leaving that facility to deal primarily with acute medical and trauma cases.
“The Cambridge hub is still underway … we are currently in talks to establish exactly what it will be.”
He has loved every aspect of his job. “I would like to put back into medicine what medicine has given me in life. Whatever you do in healthcare is ultimately for the benefit of everybody.”
Trotter Alana with owner and trainer Luk Chin in the stables at Cambridge Raceway. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
