Te Arawa Whānau Ora, Healthy Families Rotorua and Lakes District Health Board are working collaboratively with local champions and organisations to identify, design and implement changes to develop A Crisis Resilient Workforce across Te Arawa.
It follows the nationwide COVID-19 Delta Variant Level 4 Lockdown announced this month and a call from Jenny Kaka-Scott who says, “Through active participation we would build on existing action underway in the community to create an integrated, iwi-wide prevention system for Te Arawa health and wellbeing.
Jenny moves from her previous role as Lead Systems Innovator to Manager for Healthy Families Rotorua and Te Arawa Whānau Ora Executive Leadership Member.
With the focus on what a legacy workforce might look like, the new Manager has tasked her Healthy Families Rotorua team with gathering insights and data; which includes a look back at New Zealand’s first COVID-19 Level 4 Lockdown in 2020.
“There is an opportunity to increase Māori leadership in the hauora workforce, a system building approach to prevention and crisis management, a whole of iwi/community approach and not a short-term fix but a medium to long term sustainable initiative.
The team have also rediscovered Marae Ora, a high aspiration kaupapa designed in 2019 which draws on the strengths of the marae infrastructure, its cultural wealth and the skills of its people, to play an influential leadership role in improving the health and wellbeing of Māori and the community.
“We have more than 40 Marae in Rotorua and Te Arawa and the system plays a significant role in the region; by leveraging this system it will allow for a long and enduring solution to our current and future crisis.
“True to system change methodology, this is not an overnight fix to the current capacity and capability problem. It is a medium to long term initiative to ensure sustainability in the system, that could be accelerated for activation at scale.”
WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Te Arawa Covid-19 Hub – a virtual tribal coordination centre is again stood up and Te Arawa Whānau Ora pivots quickly to redesign online services and redeploy teams to cover community need.
Testing stations and Vax clinics adapt their settings to L4 Delta requirements and prepare for a surge in demand for their services.
Rotorua is also a city with 3 MIQ hotels and over 40 hotels and residences that serve as emergency and transitional housing for families waiting for more permanent housing solutions.
Services come under pressure here at the best of times, but even more so in an emergency. Rotorua is a high Māori population city where social deprivation is a driving force.
Despite grim health status for Māori, the challenge is to have the capacity and capability that is needed within the health sector (and others), to ensure best health and wellbeing outcomes for whānau during lockdowns.
It appears in Rotorua health services are already stretched. For a population of 77,300 (July, 2020) we currently have one operational testing clinic at Kahukura Sports Club and one Community Covid Vax Hub at Central Mall. This is not a unique problem for Rotorua but with innovative systems thinking, we can do something about it.
For more information please read Social Deprivation A Factor in Lakes DHB Deficit
