Ethyl Gray Trust member Shirley Hazlewood QSM said putting the book she compiled into medical centres will "definitely" encourage immunisation.

A polio survivor hopes putting the book she's compiled into Taranaki medical centres will encourage people to get immunised.

Shirley Hazlewood, QSM, contracted polio when she was 14 months old during the 1948-49 epidemic and said she "absolutely" supports immunisation, not just of polio but also other diseases.

"Immunisation wasn't out when we got polio," she said.

ANDY JACKSON/Fairfax NZ Ethyl Gray Trust member Shirley Hazlewood QSM wants other people to immunise so they don't go through what she has.

She said she had been in and out of hospital all her life.

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"Every time I went home there was another child in the house and I'd say to mum and dad, 'what are they doing here?'

ANDY JACKSON/Fairfax NZ TDHB chief operating officer Gillian Campbell and Ethyl Gray Trust Chair Barrie Smith with the donated books.

"I kind of grew up away from them."

She said she had only had five years of schooling, didn't go to high school, and had never been able to be a nurse or a vet like she wanted.

But she said polio survivors were "very strong people", and she had done all different kinds of work on her father's farm.

"We just get on with life."

She said the feedback she had had on the book was "fantastic".

"People just think it's awesome."

She is helping promote immunisation - which she said "very, very important" - in the hope others will be spared what she had been through.

She said having the book in medical centres would "definitely" encourage people to get immunised, "once people understand what we've had to go through in life, not being able to do the things we've wanted to do in life".

She is a member of the Ethyl Gray Charitable Trust which has given 15 copies of the book, We Can Do Anything, to Taranaki Base Hospital to help raise awareness of immunisation for Immunisation Week.

Ethyl Gray, for whom the Trust is named, was a Stratford nurse during the epidemic. She caught polio - a virus that can attack nerve cells in the spinal cord - from a patient and had to be placed in an iron lung, but passed away four days later.

The setting up of the Trust was a fitting tribute to Gray and all the other nurses who ran a real risk of contracting polio at that time, the Trust said. It was set up after the Taranaki Post-Polio Group went into recess in 2015.

Trust chair Barrie Smith said they were also grateful for a donation from the TSB Community Trust to print another 48 copies of the book to distribute around the community.

Smith said he remembered the travel restrictions during the epidemics and had a friend in high school who had suffered from polio, whose leg was "like a little pea stick".

Taranaki District Health Board immunisation co-ordinator Melanie Hurliman said the DHB was grateful for the support of the Trust in promoting immunisation and for the donation of the books.

"The work of this group is very important as it reminds us of the reality of the suffering a disease like polio can bring," she said.

"We are very fortunate in this country that our immunisation rates are relatively high but we must not become complacent. If our rates drop those diseases will be back causing harm in our community."

She said immunisation is "an all of life strategy", starting in pregnancy and continuing through childhood and into the teen years. Adults were also encouraged to immunise to promote wellness and prevent the spread of disease, she said.