Woo’s future in the resort was placed in jeopardy in November after her employer, Queenstown Health, was suddenly closed and put in liquidation.
She told Mountain Scene last month she’d been ‘‘thrown in a hole’’ by the clinic’s collapse, as she’d been on a sponsored five-year visa.
However, local acupuncturist Daisuke Hiratsuka has come to the rescue, sponsoring Woo and giving her a job at his Remarkables Park clinic, Te Taira Daisuke’s Japanese Acupuncture.
Hiratsuka, who’s been practising in Queenstown for nearly a decade, says he contacted Woo in November, but at that point just to offer his help and suggest potential employers she might approach.
However, when he later heard she hadn’t had any luck securing a new job, he began thinking about sponsoring her himself.
Busy with many clients, he’d been thinking about wanting to spend more time helping his pregnant wife, and prepare for a house move.
Impressed by Woo’s skill, personality and fluent English, he decided he could free up some time for himself by taking her on as his first-ever employee, he says.
Her visa was officially approved on Monday, and she starts work next Wednesday.
Woo, who’s originally from China, says losing her job had put her in a ‘‘desperate situation’’, and she’d begun thinking she’d have to seek work in Auckland for a year — leaving behind her partner in Queenstown — to get on the residency pathway.
Getting sponsored by Hiratsuka is ‘‘amazing’’, she says.
‘‘I’m really thankful.’’
Many of her patients have been messaging her to ask if she’s OK, and wondering how they can get her treatment.
‘‘Now I can tell them, just find me at Te Taira.’’
