July 19, 2022
Health kaimahi ready to step up
The Covid pandemic has created a new type of health worker – and Health Minister Andrew Little is keen to bring them into the system.
Māori health providers have taken on hundreds of kaimahi to assist with testing and vaccination campaigns.
Mr Little says they were critical to the success of the vaccination effort and gave many people a taste of working in health.
He says with hospitals under stress because of Covid and flu cases, areas like Auckland have been taking some of them on as health assistants.
“They’re not nurses or anything like that but they’ve worked in the vaccination campaign, they’re working to help people and help frontline nurses, alleviate some of the tasks the nurses would otherwise have to do, to free them up to do the nursing so to speak. The good thing too is a lot of those people are saying ‘I wouldn’t mind getting on to nursing, what are the steps I need to take to get there?’ so the work is going on drawing on that amazing workforce to get them involved now and in the long term too helping them build their skills and get qualifications so they can do other things in the health system,” Mr Little says.