October 08, 2021
Privacy issues blocking Māori Covid data call
Associate Health Minister Peeni Henare says the Government is working to address data and funding bottlenecks which may be slowing take up of vaccines by Māori.
Waipareira head John Tamihere has threatened to go to court over access to the National Health Index, which he says whānau ora providers need to target Māori for vaccination.
Mr Henare says there is already a large amount of data about Māori communities held by iwi, and also data held by GPs which they are willing to share.
He says NHI data doesn’t hold all the answers, and there are privacy issues at play.
“If somebody submits their personal information in their interactions with the health system we can’t simply give that information to anther third party who the individual has not had interactions with or given consent to so there’s a few tricky bits that are being worked through but we know data is an important part of what we are trying to do with the vaccine,” he says.
Mr Henare says it will often take three to eight conversations to convince whānau to come forward for vaccines, and Māori providers are best placed to do that.