The 90% Project: Nearly one quarter of Māori fully vaccinated

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao GP Dr Grace Malcolm. Photo / Supplied

Nearly one-quarter of Māori have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in the Lakes District Health Board region.

But one doctor says Māori vaccination rates are still "really low" and Māori had been "a little bit behind the eight-ball" with getting vaccinated.

Nationally, more than 50 per cent of eligible Māori had received their first dose and 25 per cent were now fully vaccinated, Whānau Ora and Associate Health (Māori Health) Minister Peeni Henare said in a media statement on Sunday.

Regional figures from the DHB show more than 44 per cent of Māori had received their first dose, and 24.3 per cent of Māori had received both doses as of September 21.

Whānau Ora and Associate Health (Māori Health) Minister Peeni Henare. Photo / NZME

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao GP and member of Te Roopu Hauora o Te Araw,a Dr Grace Malcolm, said Māori had been "slow to mobilise" with getting the vaccine because of how the vaccination had been rolled out by the Ministry of Health and the District Health Board.

But the Delta variant and the recent lockdown had "woken quite a lot of people up", she said.

Te Arawa had been strategising on how to "get our people vaccinated" and it needed to be done "our way" to bring Māori people in.

One such way was the drive-through clinic in the old Foodstuffs warehouse on Clayton Rd, which would be operational every Sunday and Monday until December 6 from 10am to 6pm.

"Going forward, I think we're in a good space," Malcolm said.

While anyone could get vaccinated there, it was designed to "bring in our Māori people".

Malcolm said there would be a "take-home hāngī pack" for everyone who got vaccinated.

"There's always kai involved ... otherwise you're not looking after your people properly."

Te Tatau o Te Arawa chairman Te Taru White. Photo / Andrew Warner

Te Tatau o Te Arawa chairman Te Taru White said some of the younger generation needed some "real prompting" to get vaccinated.

"You might feel that you're invulnerable but your parents and grandparents aren't so much that way."

He encouraged young people to get vaccinated for the health and safety of their whānau.

White thought there was "vaccine hesitancy" in Rotorua and attributed this to high deprivation statistics and high numbers of homeless people.

"One of the problems of people accessing vaccines or deciding to go is because basically, it's balancing it against other priorities like getting food."

White said Rotorua needed to get "more active" with vaccinations because it seemed "quite silent right now".

"As a citizen of Rotorua, I'm not actually feeling the vibe that we're really onto it here."

Te Arawa Covid Response Hub kaumatua Monty Morrison pictured in 2020. Photo / Andrew Warner

Te Arawa Covid Response Hub kaumatua Monty Morrison said a reason behind vaccine hesitancy in the Māori community was a lack of access to information.

"The trick is to make sure we can build a pretty good bridge … so that those who are vaccine-hesitant can actually speak to somebody and get the right information."

Morrison said Te Arawa was letting the Māori community know they were "here and available" to provide vaccine information, or encouraging them to speak to their GP or health professional.

He fully supported The 90% Project, an NZME campaign aiming to get 90 per cent of New Zealand's eligible population fully vaccinated by Christmas, and said it was "a good start" for increasing vaccination rates among Māori.

"We need that visibility and we know we're active across our Māori media," he said.

"It's about making sure people get access to the information they need, and then ... not only provide the mobile [vaccination] services into those communities where they are, but also assisting them as best we can to get their shot."

A Lakes DHB spokeswoman said the board had made "very good progress" with their vaccination programme for Māori.

The figures of fully-vaccinated Māori were "consistent" with the national vaccination rate, and work was "ongoing" to lift the rates of Māori who had received one dose.

"All of our health providers in the Lakes DHB have been working extremely hard to deliver vaccinations to Māori, and are taking a whānau-centred approach to vaccinations to make the process as easy as possible.

"This includes a range of marae-based clinics and drive-throughs in different parts of the area."

The DHB was working with its health providers to reach out to members of the Māori population who were "feeling hesitant" about the vaccine.

The board was also working with health providers that were interested in becoming vaccination centres, and working with partners to "improve the reach of our Covid-19 vaccination services".

On a national level, a funding boost of $38 million to ensure Māori health providers supported Māori communities with their Covid-19 response was announced by Henare and Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson in a media statement on Tuesday.

Henare said there was "clear evidence" that Māori health providers were making inroads in to "hard-to-reach communities" and those who may be vaccine-hesitant."

"It's important they can continue this work with the funding and resources they need."