A job for the iwi

Could - and should - iwi do a better job of protecting their elderly against Covid-19? Photo / NZ Herald

Last Friday my wife and I tried to get a Covid vaccine shot in Kaitaia, but we couldn't. The hospital told Hilda that Kaitaia's days were Tuesday May 18, Wednesday 19, Tuesday 25, Wednesday 26 and Saturday 29, so she rang the 0800 line and they told her there were 178 before us, and did we mind waiting?

Well, we didn't want to wait, so I rang Te Ropu Poa (Te Hau Ora Ō Ngāpuhi, in Kaikohe) who I'd seen braggin' in the Northland Age that they would jab anyone who wanted it. She laughed and said, "Come on down, we'll do it!" so we drove down to Kaikohe.

We were met by Tia Ashby (Hone Paitai's girl from Ahipara), who was running their vaccination clinic, and she and her team helped us get the paperwork done, got us vaccinated straight away, and even organised for us to get Covid tests as well. I was very, very impressed with their professionalism, their assistance and their pleasant demeanour. Made the trip worthwhile.

The point of my story though is that Hilda and I are old enough to be eligible, but we're relatively young, healthy, mobile and aware... a lot of our kaumātua and kuia aren't. And I was thinking that iwi should be helping our kaumātua and kuia deal with the travel, timetabling, paperwork, fear and confusion of trying to get through this ordeal.

Now, if there's one thing we learned from the Covid scramble last year, it was that iwi developed good databases about where their kaumātua and kuia were living, and hopefully what their medical and dietary needs were too.

Iwi should use those databases and organise with our tuahine, Neta Smith, who's the boss at Kaitaia Hospital, to set up a schedule when we can bring our kaumātua and kuia into town, help them get their paperwork and their vaccinations done, and then get them home again. Iwi all got the vans and the staff to do the job.

Or better yet, get providers like Whakawhiti Ora Pai and the Pawarenga Community Trust and others in those outlying areas to get our kaumātua/kuia done at home.

Now I know everyone's going to say, "Shut up Hone, we're already on to it," but a lot of the old people I know haven't been done, and got no idea how to do it.

Let's not leave our old people to fend for themselves. Let's get it done. They deserve it.

And you can all give me a jab... and a left hook too if you want to... after it's all over!

Hone Harawira

Waimanoni