Covid-19: 48,000 more vaccinations needed across Auckland to get Māori to 90 per cent | Stuff.co.nz

Health providers have less than three weeks to deliver 48,000 vaccines to Māori across Auckland's three DHBs to lift Māori double-dose rates to 90 per cent, ahead of the city's likely shift into the traffic light system on November 29.

Their plea for more time to get Māori rates up to the same level as non-Māori fell on deaf ears, Māori health experts say, with the Government buckling under the pressure of summer holiday and Christmas promises.

Now iwi health providers have a daunting task ahead of them.

Counties Manukau District Health Board is 28,320 doses short of the goal, followed by Waitematā with 12,722 and Auckland with 6928, Ministry of Health figures showed, for a total of 47,970.

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Of that, 13,389 were first doses that needed to be given on Monday to meet the three-week second-dose deadline by November 29, the date the Government will review the current settings in Auckland, and then another two-week waiting period before they would be fully protected.

South Auckland GP and Auckland University Associate Professor Dr Matire Harwood said Māori vaccinators in her rohe were always concerned decision makers weren’t taking those figures into account, and the Government decision to lower restrictions for Auckland on Monday justified that concern.

She, alongside other Māori health professionals in Counties Manukau, urged the Government to wait, to give them more time to find the unvaccinated in the community before lifting the restrictions, but that plea fell on deaf ears.

“We were all clear that it needed to be equitable across ethnicity if we were going into the traffic light system.

“If we continue at the rate we’re going in Auckland, it will be Christmas before they’re double-vaccinated, and it will be two weeks after until they’re protected.”

On good days, Harwood’s team vaccinated 1000 people but, during the week that number drops by about 200 to 300.

“I’m worried. It’s already in the community, so I worry that more people will get Covid, and they’ve got co-morbidities so it will overwhelm our health system.

“I’m talking to whānau who don’t feel comfortable leaving the house. Their kids aren’t vaccinated and they don’t want to send them to school.”

Harwood said decision makers were buckling under the pressure of summer holidays and Christmas, but those were luxuries and health should have been their priority.

“Everyone’s going, ‘What is Christmas?’ It's about spending time with your whānau and being alive.

“I’m just trying to stay positive, but it can be overwhelming.”

Turuki Health Care chief executive Te Puea Winiata said her kaimahi were working as fast as they could to get vaccinations to whānau.

Like all other Māori health providers, Turuki Health Care was picking up the slack of the Government’s flawed roll-out, she said.

“We’re working at full noise right now, whether the restrictions ease or not.

“We can only go as fast as we can go, but now it’s concerning with the increasing number of live cases, and Māori will be the more affected by not being vaccinated.”

University of Auckland senior health lecturer Dr Rhys Jones said the Government needed to adjust to the situation at hand rather than bow down to public pressure.

“I totally understand how difficult it has been going through this extended period of lockdown and the loss of personal freedoms and the attraction of spending time with family, but it’s a matter of prioritising what’s most important.”

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Jones said he hoped the Government would reconsider, but feared the political repercussions of halting Auckland’s “freedom day” would be overpowering.

“I definitely see it as prioritising demands for freedom and being able to get out for New Year’s and summer holidays over people lives, and particularly Māori lives, because we are going to be bearing the brunt.

“It reflects a fundamental problem with the Government’s roll-out. It’s been a failure.”