Kapiti Mayor K. Gurunathan gets a Covid jab.
Weekly column by Kāpiti Mayor K. Gurunathan.
It's still etched in my mind. I must have been about 8 or younger. My mother, in front, carried my wee six-month-old brother Gobi. I followed carrying her bag.
It was a 3km walk to the district clinic where Gobi was due for his measles vaccination. I still remember the name of the road. Black Water Road, named after the dark waters of Sungei Ayer Itam, the river flowing close by.
Gobi, our bundle of joy, was a bonny, healthy lad. But that night he had a fever and life changed. Something had happened to him. The spark was gone, he was listless and, over the months, while his body grew, his mind and personality did not.
Sometimes he cried. A deep cry tore into your heart. We knew it had something to do with the vaccination. He lay in his cot day after day for five years. He was the last of 10 children and I don't know how my mother coped. I remember the day he died - ironically, on the Hindu festive day of Diwali, which symbolised the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness.
I never thought of that journey along Black Water Road of Penang, Malaysia, until decades later when I was a journalist with the Kāpiti Mail. Editor Richard Woodd asked me to write a personal column for the opinion page.
I was alone that late night in the office when I wrote. I don't know what it was, but as I began, the words started on their own journey fracking into my memories, seeking the site of an old hidden wound. And there was the raw memory. My hikoi along Black Water Road.
The hurt, the pain, the confusion, and that deep, deep grief in my mother's eyes that day and every day after that. The very government health system that we had trusted, the system that had never failed to support the health of all my other brothers and sisters, had failed Gobi.
Alone in that office in Rimu Rd, something broke in me. The pain I had bottled up under layers of time unravelled. I sobbed for myself, my brothers and sisters, my parents and especially for my mother.
Looking back, I know that the measles vaccination had saved thousands of Malaysian children. And there was a statistical possibility among the thousands saved for a few to suffer an adverse reaction. Our little Gobi ended up a sacrificial statistic on the altar for the common good.
I write this very-personal story in response to the 20-odd passionate people who have written to me and my fellow councillors challenging our position on the Government's vaccination mandate. These are all good people who want to do the right thing for themselves, for their families and the community. Some of them I know personally. Many shared personal stories.
There are of course the anti-vaxxers including those who believe the vaccination is a conspiracy of an elite to control the world. Then there are those who speak of the sanctity of personal choice. Gobi, being a child, never had a personal choice and suffered. The thousands of other children also had no personal choice and were spared the pain of measles and death because of a government mandate. We are in a very complex and fluid situation with no black-and-white answers.
The right of personal choice does not mean you can drive on the other side of the road. On one hand I have Christian colleagues who strongly deny the right of personal choice for women to have an abortion, but now claim the right of personal choice against vaccination.
Neither does the right to the freedom of expression mean you can shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. The right to personal choice, while critically important, has always been a qualified one. If the impact of your personal choice is confined to only personal consequences, your right to that choice could be justified. But if the consequences of your personal choice impacts, or has the potential to impact, negatively on others, that right cannot be fully justified.
When the consequences of individual freedom of choice pose the potential suffering and death of others, then the sanctity of the common or collective good should take precedence over individual rights. We all accept there are genuine instances where people can't have this vaccination and, therefore, should be entitled to dispensation.
Under the Health and Safety Act, council has legal responsibility for the health and safety of its staff. We also have a responsibility for the collective health and safety of our communities.
The common good of a community is the sum total of the wellbeing of its individuals. Our council staff, councillors and I are facing very complex and increasingly challenging circumstances where the Government has mandated a course of actions to save lives and reduce suffering.
I leave you with this observation by Dr Jeremy Farr, director of global charitable foundation Wellcome Trust: "The longer this virus continues to spread in largely unvaccinated populations globally, the more likely it is that a variant that can overcome our vaccines and treatments will emerge."