Health experts say the Government has failed to protect Māori and Pasifika from the latest outbreak, calling it 'our worst nightmare'
Friday, 20 August 2021
Health experts say they warned the government Māori and Pasifika vaccination rates needed to be prioritised but the Ministry of Health failed to respond. Now, those at-risk communities are even more vulnerable to the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19.
Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, the National Māori Pandemic Group, said the Government has failed to meet high Māori and Pasifika vaccination expectations because the Covid-19 response operates in a health system set up to benefit Pākehā .
It has called on the Government to halt second dose vaccinations until vulnerable Māori and Pasifika groups have received their first dose.
The group also slammed the Ministry of Health's data collection describing it as slow, unreliable and deceptive. It doesn’t break down the data enough by ethnicity and fails to show an accurate picture of Pasifika vaccination rates by their community groups.
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The rebuke was made during a media Zoom conference on Thursday and comes at a time when questions are being raised about the level of vaccination rates amongst frontline workers, of which Māori and Pasifika form a large percentage.
The group’s push for immediate action comes days after the country went into its second nationwide lockdown after the Covid-19 Delta variant was discovered in the community on Tuesday.
Health experts believe the impacts of coronavirus would be felt more heavily in Māori and Pasifika communities.
A report in the New Zealand Medical Journal, shows Pacific people are three times more likely to need hospitalisation when infected with the virus than non-Pacific people and Māori were 2.5 times more likely to need hospitalisation.
“Structural inequities and systemic racism in the healthcare system mean that Māori and Pacific communities face a much greater health burden from Covid-19,” the report said.
As of August 16, more than 1.6 million people had received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. 95,000 of these were Pasifika, the lowest group uptake. The second-lowest uptake was Māori at 140,000.
Of more than 900,000 fully vaccinated New Zealanders, only 59,006 Pasifika people had received their second jab and 86,137 Māori.
Professor Dr Papaarangi Reid, co-leader of the National Māori Pandemic Group, says the Government ignored their advice to prioritise Māori and Pasifika in the vaccine roll-out.
“The new Delta outbreak is a game-changer it’s our worst nightmare and Māori lives are at risk”, she said.
“The current vaccination plan was planned for a ‘no-outbreak scenario’, and despite our advice, the Government in planning the vaccination roll-out did not prioritise Māori or Pasifika peoples.
“Despite evidence of us being at greater risk of severe outcomes, and at risk if Aotearoa had a significant outbreak. And so here we are, we are in this moment, this is the nightmare.
“We believe it is irresponsible, negligent and a treaty breach to continue with this vaccine roll-out plan and as a consequence, the Māori vaccination rates – following the roll-out we've had to date - are dangerously low.
“Non-Māori rates at all ages are higher showing that they have better access associated with white privilege in Aotearoa.”
Professor Reid said the rollout plan must be paused for dose two, so Māori and Pasifika are prioritised to get at least dose one.
She said kaumātua, the elderly, those with long-term conditions, hapū māmā (pregnant women), their whānau and those they work and engage with, should be a priority. Once there is good coverage of people who fit these profiles, the programme should then extend to all Māori and Pasifika.
“Pausing second doses to ensure those who have not received a vaccination get at least some coverage is the best and safest approach now,” Professor Reid said.
“We demand that the Government become Treaty compliant and focused on equity as they state in their objectives and Māori must now be prioritised in the vaccine rollout, and we must change that process now.”
Dr Maia Melbourne-Wilcox, an Otago University clinical senior lecturer and a primary health care physician said given the outbreak, the vaccination system needed to be reshuffled to prioritise those most at risk.
The Primary Care sector, which has access to the lists of people waiting for a vaccine, should reshuffle the list and prioritise vulnerable Māori and Pasifika people.
“It would look like prioritising the spaces that are available. Firstly to those that have not received a dose of the vaccine and then to those who meet those criteria. If we are to prevent mortality and overwhelming our hospital system”, Dr Melbourne-Wilcox said.
Another group member, Dr Donna Cormack, a senior lecturer at Auckland University and Otago University researcher has spent years studying the impacts of racism on health in New Zealand and overseas. She said on top of the vaccination problems the data coming from the Ministry of Health shows it is primarily serving the Pākehā community.
Dr Cormack said the ethnicity data was only made available on August 6, months after the vaccination rollout began.
“I think it was a pretty appalling commitment to equity,” she said.
“It was quite a few months into a vaccination programme before we had any data available from the Ministry of Health that looked at differential vaccination rates and that’s compounded by the fact the Ministry of Health actively chose not to collect ethnicity data at the point of vaccination.
“So it's relying on already collected data sources that have known data quality issues and those data quality issues are worse for Māori and Pasifika peoples.”
Dr Cormack said, although tables are updated every three to four days, communities can’t monitor what’s happening in District Health Boards, and the data doesn’t reflect different Pacific communities, instead grouping them into one aggregate Pasifika rate.
“It’s symptomatic of how the Ministry has been the whole Covid response, slow to publish information by ethnicity which serves the total population.
“If you don’t break it down by ethnicity, looking at the total population rates and figures, it gives you an accurate picture of what's going on for Pākehā because they make up most of the population, but it doesn't tell us what's happening for other communities.
“So not publishing ethnic-specific vaccination rates is compounding the inequity because we have inequity in access to information that we need to plan and to respond.”
The group said the government's announcement to lower the age of vaccination to include youth aged between 12-15 years old from September 1, was a step in the right direction but not far enough to protect those most at risk.
Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā was established in March last year during the first Covid-19 outbreak to provide expert public health advice for whānau, Māori health providers, community groups, and iwi. The group is made up of the nation's leading Māori primary care specialists, public health physicians, nurses, and iwi leaders.
In April, one of the group's co-leaders, Dr Rawiri Jansen quit the Government's covid immunisation implementation advisory group frustrated at the group's refusal to adopt an age adjuster, so Māori could be included in the high-risk elderly group at 50 or 55 rather than 65.
Modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini and published in the New Zealand Medical Association Journal found that Māori are twice as likely to die of Covid-19 as non-Māori. The rate is even higher for older Māori and Pasifika people and those that suffer from underlying health problems.
The Ministry of Health was approached for comment. An emailed response said, “We’re handling multiple queries and will come back to you when we can.”