Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Mum unhappy that Health Ministry contacted autistic 12-year-old about getting vaccinated

A West Auckland mother was shocked after intercepting a phone call from a Healthline worker wanting to speak directly with her 12-year-old autistic son about whether he needed help getting vaccinated.

The Ministry of Health has apologised to the family and promised to make improvements to the service to ensure no one under the age of 16 is contacted after the mother complained.

Zoe Strange was shocked when a Healthline worker called last Thursday wanting to speak to her son about whether he had full access to the vaccine and if she could talk him through it.

Her son was busy so Strange spoke to the woman instead.

She asked the woman if it was usual to be talking with12-year-olds and was told it was as some were able to make their own choices.

"I said, 'does that not sit uncomfortably with you?'. And she said, 'this is what we've been asked to do'."

Strange challenged whether it was even legal or ethical for the Ministry to be talking to a 12-year-old about a health decision and told her she didn't think it was appropriate.

On further probing the call centre worker said she had not been aware the boy was autistic as they were not provided with that level of detail.

Strange said the call would have been extremely distressing for her son especially when they had made the decision as a family not to vaccinate him at this stage due to his autism.

When she asked the call centre worker about how to make complaint about them contacting young people directly about the vaccine, the woman did not know the process and instead took feedback before being called back by the manager.

She has also made a complaint to the Health and Disability Commissioner and complained to the director-general of health, but has not received any response.

Another mother told the Herald she was also unhappy her 12-year-old daughter had been contacted by Healthline and when she said they could not speak to her, she started receiving texts for her.

Ministry of Health covid vaccine and immunisation programme group operations manager Astrid Koornneef said the Ministry has apologised to the family for the distress caused and changes had been made to make sure it did not contact children aged under 16 directly.

The standard practice was that Healthline did not directly call anyone under the age of 16 to see if they wanted their Covid-19 Vaccination.

Anyone who advised they did not want a vaccination or did not want to be contacted again was also recorded in the system.

To ensure people's privacy, minimum information was provided to call centre staff only included the person's name, contact number, date of birth and vaccination status. No information about a person's medical history, including any conditions or other needs is not provided, was passed on.

The Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner confirmed it had received a complaint and it was currently being assessed.