Covid-19: Community groups lead way in vaccinating homeless people
Wednesday, 8 September 2021
Rochelle Nuku-Rio wanted to lead by example when she got vaccinated against Covid-19 at a special clinic for Wellington’s rough sleepers and people in emergency housing.
She was homeless herself for a period of eight months, but now works as a support worker at the Downtown Community Ministry (DCM), which has organised the clinics.
“I wanted to encourage the taumai (homeless) to do it,” Nuku-Rio (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Ruahine) said. “I did it for the love of the people at work. My heart is always with them.”
DCM runs the clinics with Te Aro Health and Tū Ora Compass Health, and has administered 106 doses of the Pfizer vaccine so far.
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Nuku-Rio was now fully vaccinated and successfully encouraged whānau – including her mother, who is aged in her 80s – to get the inoculation.
“It’s a matter of taking care of yourself, and being vigilant.”
Downtown City Ministry chief executive Stephen Turnock said people who were rough sleeping might struggle to get vaccinated.
“This group of people often won’t have the ability to access the vaccine themselves,” he said. “Trust has to be established. Even making sure they’re getting the right information – in a way which they can understand – can take a lot of work.”
The people DCM worked with were predominantly Māori – and already vaccination rates for Māori lagged behind the rest of the population, Turnock said.
Taumai often had underlying health conditions that were made worse by an inability to access support.
Fifty people received their first dose of the vaccine at a clinic in July. Then, at a second clinic in August, 56 vaccines were administered, 24 of which were second doses. The next clinic was due to be held on September 29.
Wellington City Missioner Murray Edridge said a Covid-19 outbreak in the rough sleeping community had potential to be devastating.
“We should be really anxious about that, and so getting the opportunity to vaccinate people who are homeless should be a priority.” Wellington City Mission had a “fully vaccinated frontline work force”.
Kahungunu Whānau Services is also running vaccination programmes for homeless people around Wellington.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Vince Barry said vaccination rates for homeless people and rough sleepers were unlikely to be monitored because no single database existed to keep track of homeless populations.
About 41,000 homeless people live in New Zealand, a number which includes people living in precarious circumstances, such as bunking down in garages, or living out of cars.
District health boards in Wellington and Auckland were working closely with providers of transitional housing, relying on “existing relationships where residents have some trust”, Barry said.
The three Auckland health boards had mobile outreach teams with service providers, which visited emergency and transitional housing sites to perform vaccinations. Those same providers were also offering transport to vaccination centres.
Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said the mission’s Calder Health Centre was approved as a Covid-19 vaccination centre shortly before lockdown.
“To date we have vaccinated more than 200 people who are experiencing homelessness, or who are vulnerably housed.” The mission was working with the Auckland primary health organisation to plan a vaccination outreach service.