Māori health leaders gear up for 'people focused' vaccine roll-out

Face-to-face contact will be key to connecting those "invisible" in mainstream services to the Covid-19 vaccine, Māori health leaders say.

Hopes for a "people focus" to the rollout of the vaccine have been emphasised by Māori and Pasifika leaders in Tairāwhiti, who say marae, churches and even door-knocking will be crucial to ensuring their people are vaccinated.

But they have also called on health authorities to consider how it will connect with those who are "invisible", or not accessing health services.

Turanga Health chief executive Reweti Ropiha said they had a cohort of people who were "visible" and using their services, but that didn't cover all Māori in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa.

"It's those who are invisible, not just in Turanga Health but also in the mainstream services, and you've got to work that much harder to connect them."

He believed the solution lay in vaccination services being mobile and people-focused.

"We need to go in face-to-face. Rather than send in posters, go in and put a face to the strategy. This whole approach is going to be about people. To give confidence to people to participate, you do need people at the front end.

"For me, those are things that are consistent with our region - that lives and breathes what Gisborne/Tūranganui-a-Kiwa is all about."

Ropiha said a meeting was being planned among health authorities which would be their first opportunity to canvas the vaccine rollout.

Key elements they were seeking included flexibility and mobility in the approach to vaccination.

"Going to where the people are," Ropiha said. "Not just having one or two options."

The approach to Covid-19 testing in Tairāwhiti last year would serve as a "grounding" for the vaccination rollout and provided "key learning", which would inform the next stage.

"We did workplace, marae, urban settings and they were all at different times.

"There were some in the morning, some at night, there were different days."

Turanga Health chairperson Pene Brown said one of the difficulties their organisation faced was that they worked with a target population, but did not do "all things for all Māori".

He expected the people they worked with could be guided toward the vaccination programme, with the support of nurses and kaiāwhina (assistants).

"But there is still a bigger Māori population that the district health board needs to share with the community leaders about how we are going to meet that rollout requirement," he said.

Hauora Tairāwhiti chief executive Jim Green said in his report to the board last month that ensuring access and coverage for Māori and Pasifika populations would be of "key importance" in the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination.

Hauora Tairāwhiti would make contact with iwi and the Pacific Islands Community Trust in early 2021 to "co-design" how to ensure "maximum coverage" of the population, he said.

Of Tairāwhiti's population of about 50,000, Māori make up 53 percent, while the Pasifika community is 4.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Tairāwhiti's Pasifika community said it would use church and community leaders, and was even willing to door-knock to ensure their people were vaccinated against Covid-19.

Pacific Islanders' Community Trust Gisborne operations manager, Dr 'Alaimaluloa Toetu' u-Tamihere, said while plans were yet to be worked through, she believed the rollout of the vaccination would use a similar approach to pandemic testing last year.

She expected they would work closely with experts at Hauora Tairāwhiti and spread the message across "all avenues", including churches, schools and social media channels.

"It's important every Pacific Islander gets vaccinated because health is wealth," Dr Toetu'u-Tamihere said.

"Our people are a collective people who tend to gather at churches and for community events.

"We usually seek the counsel and guidance of the leaders of the churches and individual Pasifika groups to ensure help is extended to our people."

This guidance would extend to the vaccine rollout, and was likely to occur across denominations to reach Tairāwhiti's diverse Pasifika population, who hail from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Niue, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Tahiti.

For people who did not attend church, they would use social media and even resort to "door-to-door knocking if we have to., Dr Toetu'u-Tamihere said.

While the largest proportion came from Tonga, Dr Toetu'u-Tamihere said most of Tairāwhiti's Fijian population worked in forestry under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme (RSE).

All included

Dr Toetu'u-Tamihere called for RSE workers and Pasifika residents and visitors who might be in Gisborne due to borders closing to also be vaccinated.

"What I want to see is that vaccinations are offered to all our people, not just to residents and citizens, but also RSE workers ... those brought here and contracted by the Government to work in the forestry industry or living in Gisborne for other reasons."

She acknowledged her team of staff and board members, saying they worked as a "united front" that made it easier to help their people achieve good health and safeguard it.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health said everyone in the country would have access to a vaccine free of charge.

Green said planning had started for the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in Tairāwhiti.

Health authorities were concentrating on "overcoming barriers" including geography and the community's understanding of vaccination, he said.

"Plans include ensuring that vaccination is available in various settings to meet the diverse needs of our population."

Green said they would work with health partners, including iwi. "We want to ensure the right person is vaccinating in the right place," he said.

According to the Ministry of Health, vaccines were expected to be delivered to frontline workers in the second quarter of 2021, with the aim of starting vaccination of the general public in the second half of the year.

Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the News Publishers' Association and NZ On Air.