Covid-19: Disabled community ‘an afterthought’ in NZ’s vaccine roll-out, expert says

Wednesday, 22 December 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces the launch of ‘The Manaakitanga Journey’, a tool to help disabled people get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Disabled people were an “afterthought” in the Government’s Covid-19 vaccine roll-out, an expert says.

Critics claim methods to help disabled people get vaccinated were raised with the Government at the start of the year, but were not taken up until October and November.

But Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni said disabled people had been prioritised in the roll-out, and cited high vaccination rates as proof.

University of Otago senior research fellow Bernadette Jones (Ngati Api, Nga Wairiki) is an expert on Māori health and has a mobility disability.

21122021 Photo: JERICHO ROCK-ARCHER/STUFF Dr Bernadette Jones was part of a team that advised the government on how it could help disabled people in the vaccine rollout. She says her advice was ignored.

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She was part of a team that provided advice to the Government on how it could help disabled people and Māori from the start of the pandemic.

Māori health expert Dr Bernadette Jones says McGregor’s situation is not unique, and there is something broken in the disability support system.

Jones said advice was given, including the suggestion of online tools to organise transport to accessible sites, as early as February 2021.

But, according to Jones, the advice wasn't taken, and she believes disabled people were treated as “an afterthought”.

“The vaccination didn't get rolled out well for disabled people, and it didn’t get rolled out well for Māori,” she said. “The advice wasn’t taken up early enough.”

Paula Tesoriero, the Disability Rights Commissioner.

Jones said she had been calling for a text service for the Deaf and hard of hearing community for “months” before it was implemented.

“It just took so long, you can't have it come out later, it needed to be done at the beginning,” she said.

The Government launched an online tool to help disabled people find and arranged transport to accessible vaccination centres in October.

Social Welfare Minister Carmel Sepuloni says Covid-19 made it harder for people to re-enter the workforce.

A text service to support people who are Deaf or hard of hearing to access vaccine information and book appointments was rolled out in November.

Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero has been liaising on a regular basis with Government throughout the pandemic.

She said she had given advice on removing barriers for disabled people in the vaccine roll-out, and was part of a collective group that offered ideas such as online tools and text based services at the start of 2021.

“If we look at the time between these ideas being raised earlier in the year, and the time they were rolled out, it certainly would have been good to see those measures put in place earlier,” she said.

“By the time these things were put in place New Zealand was well and truly into the general vaccine roll-out.”

But Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni said the Government had kept vulnerable communities mind throughout the pandemic.

“We did move pretty quickly to set up an all-of-government accessible formats group, to ensure that communications were accessible and getting to our disabled community,” she said.

“I do think that in some instances the information was not as accessible or as quick to be accessible as we would have liked, but I think that learnings have been taken throughout the pandemic that have been applied, reapplied and can be applied moving forward as well.”

Government data, released to Stuff on Tuesday, showed 90 per cent of disabled people have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 85 per cent have received two or more doses.

This is higher than vaccination rates for able-bodied people, where 83 per cent have received at least one dose and 77 per cent at least two.

Sepuloni said she felt a “sense of relief” knowing that disabled people have been able to access the vaccine during the pandemic.

“We’re going to continue to watch that space moving forward as well to ensure that we continue to try and lift the numbers but also with the booster shots in mind,” she said.

“I hope that disabled people do know that they have been a priority consideration right from the get go when the pandemic first arrived.”