A quiet superstar

After a childhood of violence and broken dreams, Amanda Evans has forged a career making a huge difference to the lives of dying children.

- BY MICHELE HEWITSON • PHOTOGRAPH BY HAGEN HOPKINS

She was going to be a gymnast. She was eyeing Commonwealth Games selection until she hurt her arm. Then she was going to be “a famous actress”. Until she realised she wasn't. She was a DJ, with dreadlocks and a bindi, and a radio host on bFM and George. She studied naturopathy. She was a bit of a New Age hippy.

Then she thought she might go to medical school. A mate told her she was dreaming. Only geniuses, he said, got into medical school. She got into medical school.

Dr Amanda Evans, the woman who was never supposed to be a doctor, is now one of only two palliative-care specialists for children in the country. She has set up a charitable trust, Rei Kōtuku, to address the limited government funding available to dying kids in need of palliative care. The trust provides a free service for those kids and their families from Wellington to Hawke's Bay. It provides medical help and, as importantly, emotional support.

She might, even ought to, have been destined for a pretty dismal future. She was saved, quite possibly, because she was clever. She says she doesn't know that she's clever. What she is, she says, is dogged, hardworking and good at rote learning.

She also suspects she is competitive - quite possibly, mostly with herself.

Evans was once in a stage play called Naughty Bad Girls. She has never been a naughty bad girl. Her mother, Julie, always said she trusted her. You can see why she might have wanted to be worthy of her mother’s trust.

She grew up with her mother and younger sister Fiona in Hastings. Her mother had her when she was 17; her father was 18. He spent some time in prison while her mother was pregnant. They got married. They were poor. Her father was violent towards her mother and they often had to flee from him. “I remember being bundled into the car in the middle of the night. And she was driving, with him behind, and we had to drive to the police station for protection.”