Remember the lessons of history, Māori: Get vaccinated now

Friday, 8 October 2021

People using the inhalation chamber in the Government Buildings in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, during the “Spanish flu” outbreak of 1918.

OPINION: In the heart of Wairarapa, just east of Greytown, lies my marae of Papawai. Our urupā, Rangiurunga, is only a five-minute stroll from the marae grounds. In the middle of the graveyard is a sizeable indentation created as the result of a mass burial.

Despite absent headstones, this significant hollow is the final resting place of many of our tipuna who lost their lives due to the 1918 influenza pandemic. One newspaper harrowingly reported that the military who were stationed at the local camp “… found the Maoris of Papawai pa in a sorry plight, and some of them were lying dead and unburied in their homes”.

Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay says a new initiative will see Auckland GPs calling their Māori and Pasifika patients to ensure they get vaccinated. (Video first published in October 2021)

Sadly, most if not all urupā retell the same sad past via a visible sunken cavity in the ground. The 1918 influenza killed an estimated 2500 Māori, as our people had less immunity from historical respiratory diseases, and, as a result, were eight times more likely to die than Pākehā from the same illness.

The attitude of some of our people not to vaccinate against Covid-19 beggars belief and is an example of historical amnesia.

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A Māori child receives the oral polio vaccine in April 1962. Māori have, over time, built immunity to contagious diseases that include being vaccinated.

Go back in time and you will find numerous examples of Māori dying in high numbers due to the outbreak of a transmissible disease, with subsequent mass vaccination campaigns taking place to protect them from the worst outcome.

Smallpox vaccination drive up the Whanganui River, 1913: “During the tour between 700 and 800 natives were vaccinated, the lymph [the vaccine] being very effective.”

Typhoid fever epidemic at Motiti, Clevedon, Raglan and Urewera Country, 1925: “The Maoris rendered every possible assistance in combating the disease. Inoculation met with no obstruction.”

It doesn't hurt, says seven-year-old Tuua Oiaua, at Richmond Rd School, as he shows his arm after an injection as part of the 1973 check on diphtheria immunity. There are numerous examples historically of Māori dying in high numbers due to the outbreak of a transmissible disease, writes Malcolm Mulholland.

Outbreak of scarlet fever at French Pass, 1931: “… the general inoculation of Maoris in the district has checked its spread.”

The history lesson is obvious – get jabbed, protect yourself, and stop the spread of a disease causing severe illness or even worse, death.

Of perhaps even greater concern is that our people have forgotten our greatest accomplishment – that we are still here as a people.

Nelson Marlborough Health general manager of Māori health and vulnerable populations Ditre Tamatea said his grandmother talk about Māori being turned away from access to Gisborne hospital during the influenza pandemic of 1918.

The ‘’Fatal Impact’’ theory argued that Māori would become extinct as a race from introduced European diseases. The belief was reinforced with good reason; our population had been halved, from an estimated 90,000 before European contact to 42,000 in 1896.

The reason for surviving was simple. Māori had, over time, built immunity to contagious diseases that included being vaccinated.

Malcolm Mulholland: ‘’What I do struggle with is the notion that some of our people think they know more than the experts in their field, based largely on non-factual social media posts.’’

Many of the historical accounts of an outbreak of a disease among a Māori community reference the perfect cocktail for a breeding ground of an infectious disease: poor housing, sanitisation, and a lack of services tailored by and for Māōri.

For example, in 1911, 17 Māori nurses were appointed to visit various kāinga to “educate them in sanitary matters” to help prevent the spread of disease, and in 1935 the Taranaki Maori Trust Board discussed a Māori health campaign, sparked by an outbreak of typhoid fever in local pā, “… to deal with the whole situation from a Māori point of view”.

Sadly, such conditions are a failure of successive governments.

Fast-forward to 2021 and the same societal problems exist which have had a helping hand in the spread of Covid-19 within New Zealand.

However, we can, and we must, get vaccinated. That much we do have power over. I can appreciate a healthy dose of scepticism about the actions of the Crown/Government. Such cynicism, based on the wars of the 1860s, proved to be a hindrance in 1938 in Waikato when an operation that had the support of Te Puea Hērangi was launched to reduce the spread of disease.

However, what I do struggle with is the notion that some of our people think they know more than the experts in their field, based largely on non-factual social media posts.

After all, would we Māori take the word of a young Russian about how to correctly perform a pōwhiri over that of a kaumātua who has been delivering whaikōrero for over 30 years? If your reluctance is over what is in the vaccine, our tipuna didn’t know that the vaccine for smallpox originated from cows, and yet they didn’t contract the disease and lived to tell the tale.

Our collective nightmare, if our people do not get vaccinated, will be a repeat of what took place at many of our marae, just over 100 years ago.

Much like with the spanish flu, we know we are 50 per cent more likely to die from Covid-19 due to dominating health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and asthma.

Of particular concern is how patients will be prioritised, or triaged, if they are admitted to a hospital that is overcome with unvaccinated Covid-10 patients.

History would suggest that those who are least likely to survive, such as those with serious pre-existing health conditions, will be left to fend for themselves, while those more likely to survive will be the first to receive a ventilator.

Don’t be one of those patients – get vaccinated.

Historian Dr Malcolm Mulholland (Ngāti Kahungunu) is a senior researcher at Massey University in Palmerston North.