2500 People Supported Through Whanau Ora Community Clinic

Frontline doctors, nurses and admin support staff from all The Whanau Ora Community Clinics have now seen over 2500 individuals (and swabbed over 2000) in the past 4 weeks in Northland, Auckland and Canterbury.

Whilst most of the country was in lockdown in their own bubble, our staff were face to face with Coronavirus, battling it at their own risk, so we could all be safe in our homes.

“Our dedicated staff are all true heroes” says George Ngatai the Director of the Community Clinic. We are all very proud of you and your families for the sacrifices you have made for us over the past 4-5 weeks.

George was visiting the Christchurch CBAC in Aranui which is one of many his organisation runs across the country alongside other partners like Nga Maata Waka, He Waka Tapu, Safer Aotearoa Family Violence Prevention Network, Orakei Marae, Huakina Development Trust and Man Up and Legacy NZ. All our teams have re-focused their attention on Covid-19.

As weeks become months, Coronavirus is starting to show its ugly socio-economic face on our country. We know that a lot of our whanau are struggling to deal with this.

It is no secret that there is a big gap between Maori, Pacific and high needs whanau compared to the rest of New Zealand. This is making matters even worse.

To help with this, the Whanau Ora Community Clinic are starting to roll out more social service support alongside our CBACs. We have given out care packs with essential items such as food and welfare support to well over 600 whanau. As we prepare to go from level 3 to level 2 this would mean more people in more bubbles and we want to be able to position ourselves to deal with other issues as well.

We have seen a spike in DV and more requests of mental health support, housing, employment and counselling for those who want it via our qualified staff all these requests have been via telephone and video conferencing. Our organisation like many across NZ would like to remind whanau that we are all here for you. You are not alone in this.

We have had to innovate and do things slightly different to engage with our community who are predominantly Maori. Things like running a mobile via camper vans through to provision of setting up a full on CBAC is how we were able to achieve this outcome. Without the support of the Ministry of Health, the Northland, Auckland Metro, Canterbury District Health Boards, Pegasus Health, National Hauora Coalition, Mahitahi Hauora and the Ministry of Social Development we would not have been able to do this.

For more information or help call us on 0800 367 942 Monday to Sunday or visit our website www.whanauoracommunity.com or drive through one of our CBACs

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