June 14, 2023
GPs block innovation in child immunisaiton drive
A Māori pediatrician is blaming patch protection by GPs for the slow progress being made to increase the use of whanau ora and community groups for childhood immunisation.
National Immunisation Taskforce chair Owen Sinclair says the general practitioner system has never worked well for Maori because of issues such as cost and access.
It’s certainly not working for childhood immunisation, with low vaccination rates exposing tamariki to the threat of ourbreaks of illnesses like measles, mumps and whooping cough.
“To create equioty you don’t have to just give the people who are suffering the inequity more. You havbe to give the people who are not suffering any inequity less and that’s the part of the puzzle we haven’t solved yet. It’s one of the core reasons why we are not addressing inequities in anything is that there is no real political will to do the other side of it and there is significant resistance,” Dr Sinclair says.
He’s keen to work on alternate delivery systems with organisations like Waipareira Trust, which is trialing mobile clinics and pop ups in low income communities.