Ahead of a nationwide rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine to kaumātua, health providers say they re up against a tidal wave of misinformation and a deep-rooted distrust of the health system. But Māori are now mobilising to keep their own safe.
John Rarere with wife Michelle and mokopuna.
Photo: Supplied
John Rarere s phone won t stop pinging. Over the last three months, it s been flooded with messages from relatives urging him and others to be wary of Covid-19 vaccines. They believe the government is trying to scam everybody, he says. Some of them think the vaccine will change their DNA or that it contains nanotechnology which will eventually give the government the ability to control them.
Review: The Checkup smartly answers all your stupid medical questions
Review
Doctor Emma Espiner watches TVNZ’s The Checkup, which promises to tell you the things about health that you really want to know.
I lie to my doctor. It’s even worse now that I’m a doctor too and she treats me like a colleague. I pretend to know things that I don’t just so she doesn’t think my medical education was deficient, and me perhaps not that good at doctoring.
She’s extremely approachable and kind, but I present her with my best self whenever I see her. How many drinks a week? Oh, just a couple on the weekend. Never smoked! When she prescribes something and says “do you know how this works?” I always say yes and then Google it later. This isn’t unusual, and the studies that have tried to unpack why we lie to our doctors find that the most common reason is embarrassment, followed by a fear of being judged. We don’t tend to ask “stupid” questions of doctors, because of this
“Through Tend we can provide flexibility, doctors can work from home or 20 hours a week,” she said. Robinson did not disclose how many patients Tend had, citing commercial sensitivity, but mentioned that there had been more than a couple of thousand downloads of the Tend app.
SUPPLIED
Co-founders of Tend, Cecilia Robinson and James Robinson, decided to create their own healthcare clinic to innovate healthcare and make it more flexible. She said the company was also interested in expanding into pharmacies, mental and midwifery services. Infratil’s chief executive Marko Bogoievski also joined Tend as a director and shareholder, owning about 14 per cent of the business.