Visiting MS communities in New Zealand and Australia

On a recent trip to Australasia, MSIF CEO Dr. Lydia Makaroff spent time with MS New Zealand and MS Australia. In this article, she reflects on back on the visit, the insights she gained, and how MS organisations worldwide are working towards common goals.

In August 2025, I travelled to Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia to meet with two of MSIF’s Full Member organisations: MS New Zealand and MS Australia. These visits offered a valuable opportunity to listen, learn, and reflect on both the strengths of our movement and the shared challenges we face across the world.

Throughout the visit, I heard about practical and innovative ways that MS organisations are supporting people affected by MS. Their work focused on improving access in rural areas, creating culturally inclusive services, and engaging younger people in meaningful ways. I left inspired by their commitment and even more determined to help build stronger, fairer systems for everyone, regardless of where they live.

Global priorities with local voices

MS New Zealand and MS Australia work within very different healthcare systems, yet many of the challenges they face are familiar across the MS movement. These include gaps in access to care, difficulties in engaging younger people, and the ongoing need to deliver inclusive, person-centred services. These priorities closely reflect MSIF’s global strategy and reaffirm our commitment to working together across borders.

While every country’s context is different, the visits reminded me that local solutions can inspire international change. Peer-led support, digital tools for remote communities, and culturally grounded services all offer lessons that others can learn from and adapt to their own circumstances.

Aotearoa New Zealand

In Wellington, I joined Amanda Rose, National Manager of the MS Society of New Zealand, for their National Executive Committee meeting. The Committee brings together representatives from communities across the country, combining strong governance expertise with deep lived experience. Each region has its own health infrastructure, geography, and population needs, and the Committee is responsible for shaping a national strategy that reflects these diverse realities.

The MS Society of New Zealand supports 18 independent member organisations across Aotearoa. In Auckland, the country’s largest city, the local society helps people navigate a complex health system and builds networks in a fast-paced urban setting. In contrast, the West Coast MS Society in Greymouth serves a rural population where people may need to drive for hours across mountain passes to reach a specialist. In this context, the local society provides highly personal and community-based care.

New Zealand’s publicly funded healthcare system offers universal coverage, but patients still face out-of-pocket costs for general practitioners, prescriptions, and some specialist care. Access to newer disease-modifying therapies is limited by strict criteria, meaning some people with MS cannot receive treatments that are available in other countries. MSIF supports MS New Zealand’s ongoing efforts to improve equity of access across the country.

The MS Society of New Zealand’s Strategic Plan 2023–2026 provides a clear direction. Its goals include improving access to care no matter where someone lives, promoting brain health through best practice, building national advocacy to improve services, and investing in education and support for Community Advisors.

I also learned more about the Community Advisors Meeting 2025, hosted by MS New Zealand. This annual event brings together staff from regional MS societies for two days of training, collaboration, and mutual support. Many Community Advisors work in isolation, so this event plays a vital role in keeping them connected and up to date.

This year’s theme was ‘MS Across the Lifespan’. Sessions covered support after diagnosis, ageing with MS, updates on conditions such as NMOSD and MOGAD, and new treatment options. A neurorehabilitation class called “neuro-lates” was made available online to support movement and strength at home.

Thank you to Amanda and the Committee for your warm welcome and for sharing your vision of a national movement that respects local identity and strives for equity.

“Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.”

(My strength is not as an individual, but as a collective in Māori)

Australia

In Canberra and Sydney, I met with Rohan Greenland and the team at MS Australia, along with colleagues from state-based MS organisations and research institutions. We discussed national strategies to improve access to disease-modifying therapies and address barriers to care across the country’s vast geography.

At the MS Plus peer support group meeting, one topic was how to better engage younger people with MS. Many younger adults hesitate to access support, either because they do not consider themselves disabled enough or because they worry about taking resources from others. One solution is to reframe these spaces as opportunities for contribution. By inviting younger people to become peer mentors, especially for those newly diagnosed, they are creating more inclusive and empowering models of engagement.

In Sydney, I visited the MS Australia Brain Bank, where researchers study donated brain tissue to better understand multiple sclerosis. Seeing thin slices of brain with active, smouldering, and chronic MS lesions side by side was a powerful reminder of the toll MS takes and the generosity of donors and families who make this work possible. The Brain Bank shares tissue with researchers worldwide, driving discoveries such as a recent Nature Neuroscience study showing that inflammation in chronic lesions can trigger extra genetic changes in nerve cells, helping explain how symptoms worsen over time. This vital research, supported by dedicated experts in Australia and similar brain banks in the UK, Netherlands, USA, and Germany, brings us closer to improving life for people with MS everywhere.

In Canberra, MS Australia and I met with the Australian Department of Health. We reflected on how the WHO Global Action Plan on Neurological Conditions could translate into better national outcomes. I often think about the people behind these policies and what they need from health systems: visibility, recognition, quality data, and equitable care.

“MSIF plays such an important role in bringing diverse organisations together. One of the things I really value from being part of the CEOs group and the Board is the opportunity to exchange ideas, share approaches, and collaborate more closely.

— Rohan Greenland, MS Australia

Where we go from here

These visits reaffirmed the value of connection across people, organisations, and ideas. They strengthened relationships with two of MSIF’s member organisations and surfaced practical insights on leadership, equity, and inclusion that will help shape our global work together.

We will continue to support digital innovation, carer support, and locally driven collaboration. We will also continue to centre the experiences of people affected by MS in everything we do.

Whether you are in Aotearoa, Argentina, Algeria, or anywhere else in the world, you are part of a shared movement. Together, we can build a more connected and inclusive future for everyone affected by MS.

I wish to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands I visited in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia: including Te Āti Awa and Ngāti Toa Rangatira in Wellington, Ngāi Tahu in Christchurch, the Ngunnawal people in Canberra and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation in Sydney. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Authored by MSIF CEO Dr. Lydia Makaroff.