AN EQUAL SHOT
THE WHAREKAI at Rehua in Christchurch, a spacious, wooden building nestled behind the wharenui and surrounded by lush greenery, hums with chatter. But Suzanne Pitama, the associate dean of Māori Health at the University of Otago in Christchurch, tells me that the scene is actually pretty quiet: “Last time we were here, the kaumātua were singing karaoke.” She’s looking relieved. Pitama helped set up the MIHI (Māori/Indigenous Health Institute) Mobile Vaccination Clinic, a team of all-Māori health professionals, including GPs, psychologists and nurses, who travel to different marae across Canterbury to administer Covid-19 vaccinations to local whānau. A shy, elderly woman with bright white hair and a moko kauae is here with a good friend, Susan, who drives her to appointments like this one, where she’ll receive her second Covid-19 vaccine. Susan isn’t eligible for the vaccine under the government’s priority groups, but she was offered her first when she brought her elderly friend in, and today, she’ll get her second too. The clinic is operating under a “Protect the Pā” philosophy, reflecting that Māori are more likely to live in intergenerational households rather than aged-care homes. If those who care for their kaumātua aren’t protected, then those kaumātua are still at risk.
Cassandra Staps, an acting nurse consultant in her 50s with long braids and a comforting smile asks Susan about her first vaccination — “I felt fine”, she reports — and gingerly tells her the symptoms can be a little worse with the second. She prepares the needle and draws 0.3 mL of the Pfizer vaccine. It has been flown to Auckland from Pfizer’s labs in Belgium, then stored in ultra-cold freezers at a distribution pharmacy in Christchurch, before being delivered today to Rehua Marae. Staps listens to Susan’s brave, nervous chatter (“I’ve planned a quiet day for tomorrow, just in case”) as she expertly pushes the needle into Susan’s deltoid. She draws it out, and asks Susan if she wants a plaster. Susan is surprised: “Is it done?”
Staps normally works at Hillmorton Hospital in Christchurch, but jumped at the chance to work in a for-Māori, by-Māori healthcare project. The clinic is run by Māori health professionals; today it’s two GPs, a psychiatrist, and many nurses, as well as a rotating roster of admin staff, who book appointments, welcome people in, get their details into the National Immunisation Register and watch over them for 20 minutes after their vaccination.
Until last year, Staps says, she and her whānau were hesitant about
