Ana Apatu: Jarmy Army gears up for winter

Ana Apatu.

Last weekend I took a swim in Lake Taupo and wondered whether it would be my last for the season.

While I feel slightly nostalgic about summer coming to an end, I also love autumn and the cooler temperatures. I love the seasonal changes and look forward to those colder months where I can light my fire.

Our U-Turn Trust projects are busy and rewarding. Our Jarmy Army planning crew set a time to meet to organise our project of providing flannelette pyjamas for the children of Flaxmere for the coming cold months. I cannot claim to be the original thinker behind this project - the Jarmy Army was originally born from a chance meeting of someone I sat next to flying to Auckland who told me about the project and how wonderful it would be if we developed this for Hawke's Bay children.

Sarah Tawhai from Plunket Flaxmere is amazing and helped co-ordinate this project last year. Generosity from the Catholic and Anglican communities provide us with funding and The Warehouse provides us with bulk deals. Last year was our first Jarmy Army and we learnt a lot. This year we want to ensure we really reach the most vulnerable children, the newborns whose health may be compromised from a young age. And then there is the housing.

The Hawke's Bay District Health Board has managed to secure funding under their rheumatic fever plan for insulating houses, and so we advocate for Flaxmere. Our letters to occupants and landlords to ask whether the house is insulated had little response. Our next step is to have Tunu Tunu BBQ located in an area, so Energy Smart can assess the homes to see if the home requires insulation. We are pragmatically going street to street - targeting those areas of Flaxmere where we know the housing standards are poorer.

While there are existing criteria which families are scored against to be eligible for insulation, we have decided to pragmatically roll this out as fast as we can before winter.

The Hawke's Bay District Health Board does not have ring-fenced funding for insulation even though there is overwhelming evidence that it immediately reduces visits to GPs and hospital admissions.

Once insulated to current standards the home will always remain insulated.

We would love to be able to fund heating devices and ventilation for all homes. Our housing work will include education towards warm dry safe homes and simple low-cost remedies such as white vinegar for removing and preventing the spread of mould.

Henare O'Keefe asked me to set up a meeting with clinical director Robin Whyman and Ruth O'Rourke of Oral Health Services Hawke's Bay District Health Board to discuss how we can help with ensuring our whanau have good oral health. We are aware the model of dental healthcare is to involve the whole family in dental care of their children rather than the child visiting the dental clinic without family involvement. Of real concern is the amount of sugary drinks children are consuming - whether sugar-laden Coca-Cola or "diet" Coca-Cola, these drinks are all harmful for our teeth.

Henare and I were particularly taken with a presentation by Rob Beaglehole, chief dentist of Nelson-Malborough DHB, last year. Rob described how, he was sitting in the hospital cafeteria soaking his wrist in ice after extracting teeth all morning. As he sat in the cafeteria, he glanced out the window to see a Coca-Cola truck backing into the hospital. Rob has since led sugar-free changes with district health boards and local government.

Henare and I would love to bring Rob here to present to groups to create the impetus for change.

- Ana Apatu is chief executive of the U-Turn Trust, based at Te Aranga Marae in Flaxmere.