November 01, 2021
Ticket clippers slowing Māori vax effort
Te Whānau o Waipareira head John Tamihere doesn’t expect to see much of the $120 million the Government has thrown into boosting Māori vaccination rates.
Waipareira is taking the Government to court in a bid to get access to National Health Index data, which Mr Tamihere says will allow Māori providers to more effectively identify and target those Māori who have not had a shot yet.
He says the Government is still throwing up obstacles.
“They vote the money to the Ministry of Health. It clips 25 cents in the dollar. Goes to the DHB, they clip the rest. We want direct funding. We want to cut all the middle men out because we’re very good at what we can do and we can scale up but we can’t scale up when we’ve got so many people clipping the ticket and telling us we’re failures after they’ve spent my money, put their hand in my pocket, spent it wrongly,” he says.
John Tamihere says 94 percent of the more than 120,000 doses Waipareira has given this year have gone into non-Maori arms because if the way it has been forced to operate.
He’s also opposed to what he sees as stigmatising of people who choose not to be vaccinated, particularly if they are Māori.
Link to full interview here: https://waateanews.com/2021/10/27/pakiwaha-interview-john-tamihere/