Covid-19: Māori running out of time, health workers' fear the worst as open borders loom
Thursday, 18 November 2021
Covid-19 cases across the country are increasing, Auckland’s border is opening, and Māori are running out of time, a Ngāruawāhia health clinic says.
At 17 per cent of the national population, Māori top the Covid-19 statistics with the highest case numbers for 45 days in a row.
For the past six days, Māori have figured in more than 100 new cases each day, researcher and Covid-19 analyst Dr Rawiri Taonui reports, representing between 50 and 60 per cent of all daily cases.
He estimates every district health board in the North Island would see cases by Christmas unless something drastic happens, with Māori infections escalating to 6600.
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In Auckland, health providers are trying to support Covid positive whānau with kai and resources to get through home isolation.
In Waikato, they’re trying to boost vaccination rates before it's too late.
They want to help them make informed decisions about the vaccine before the virus enters their homes, because it’s already on their doorsteps.
Figures show that in Waikato alone, almost 30,000 vaccinations are needed before the DHB’s Māori population reaches 90 per cent by Ministry of Health standards. Overall, 40,000 more vaccinations must be delivered for the Waikato DHB population to reach 90 per cent.
Of the 115 active cases in Waikato on Wednesday, 95 were Māori.
Hope says his cousins across the town aren’t “anti-vaxxers”, they need help connecting with the nurses and to understand that time is not on their side.
“We’re born and bred here. Our kaumātua speak Māori, we speak in the same frequency, and I’m related to most of the people around here, so I just speak to them as a cousin, not a client.”
As they walk through the the Kīngitanga heartland, Hope reflects on the 1918 influenza that cut through Māori communities.
“It’s our people, it’s our people that need to be vaccinated at the end of the day.
“There’s already mass graves around here that shows the history of the last pandemic, with thousands of Māori being buried at mass grave sites.”
Hope sees it as his duty to help the mokopuna of those who survived that pandemic to survive Covid-19.
“It’s more than a job to us. It’s more like a legacy because when the last pandemic happened, all the kids’ parents were dying, so Te Puea – who started Tūrangawaewae Marae – took barges, grabbed all the children, and brought them back here.
“All of those children are our grandparents.”
Back then his tīpuna didn’t stand a chance, Hope says, but this time they can protect their whakapapa.
“We have the technology, now that we have the chance to be vaccinated I’d just love to be a part of history.”
But in the Ngā Miro Health Centre, staff are nervous.
Manager Glenda Raumati is fearful for whānau in her town and other towns across Aotearoa that she expects Covid will soon have access to.
As of Wednesday, there were 3793 active cases across Auckland, 171 in Waikato, 34 in Northland, and almost 20 more across the lower North Island and Canterbury, according to Ministry of Health figures.
So far, most cases have been contained to Auckland, giving Māori in other regions some time to have conversations with vaccinators and make their decision, but that time has run out, Raumati says.
“We’re in a little bit of a crisis, really. It’s come here with the restrictions, if you open it up … it’s scary.
“We went through a period in Auckland where people were getting it and they weren't dying, now it’s a daily occurrence almost.
“The economic pressure placed on the Government to open up is huge, but I’m scared about what’s going to happen.”
Her team has been hosting mass vaccinations, pop-up clinics, door-to-door vaccinations and information sessions for months, but with Government decisions stacked against them, it’s getting harder and harder, but they can’t afford to burn out, she says.
“The passion and the energy is till there, but we’re running out of ideas, really.
“People are going to start socialising even more than they have been under level 3, so I’m really, really concerned about what’s happening for Māori.
“Do we have the capacity to support the number of people who are going to become ill?”
Nurse Lesley Smith follows Huirama’s lead as they call into homes on Ngāruawāhia’s Durham St.
Smith is pleased to be part of the proactive approach. Making contact and offering support would do more good than waiting for someone to approach them, she says.
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“I find that there’s some people that you’re not going to achieve anything with. You listen and you thank them for their time. I’m not having a big discussion with them about [micro] chips.
“You get the wild and wonderful reasons, and then you get the genuine, ‘Well, my partner got it and they were quite sick.’”
On one visit a man told her that talking about vaccinating in their home was causing too many problems so they stopped discussing the pandemic, Smith says.
“He turned around to me and said, ‘It’s going to take someone to die in the whānau before they get vaccinated.’”
Raumati hopes it won’t come to that.
“Unless those people are prepared to stay locked up indefinitely, confined to their homes, vaccination is our only path to living some kind of normality without being impacted by Covid and becoming unwell.
“We’re in that part of the population where they can sense that they need to start making some kind of decision, they just need some reassurance.”