Counties Manukau District Health Board popular health manager says distrust of the health system has been a bigger problem for the rollout of the Covid vaccination programme than concern over the actual vaccine.
Summer Hawke is part of a campaign highlighting Māori doctors, specialists, scientists and leaders who stand by the safety and the efficacy of the vaccination.
She says lack of trust slowed the uptake of vaccines among Māori but calling them anti-vax or vaccine hesitant is just making excuses for the system.
“They are not anti-vaccination at all. Many of these families have had to her vaccination or immunisations like the many on our tamariki schedule. And we in the systems and government settings have a real unhelpful habit of labelling our whanau’, she says.
Summer Hawke says with the roll-out for tamariki starting in mid-January it’s important to do things better, and the DHB needs to take lessons from what Māori community providers are doing.
