12. Question No. 12—Health (Māori Health)HARETE HIPANGO (National) to the Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health)Question No. 12—Health (Māori Health)12. HARETE HIPANGO (National) to the Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health): Is he satisfied that Māori health providers and commissioning agents have been well positioned to support the roll-out of the COVID-19 response for Māori?Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health)): Yes.Harete Hipango: Knowing that COVID first struck 18 months ago why did the Minister wait eight months to secure accelerant funding to lift Māori vaccination rates rather than at the beginning of the vaccination roll-out as advised to him by officials?Hon PEENI HENARE: To be very clear we're talking about two different things here and I can understand how the member might have got this wrong. So if I can let me be quite clear: the COVID response plan is the broader plan. That is the plan that since the start of the pandemic we have thrown significant support into the response that's led by Māori. With respect to the COVID Māori vaccine plan that was the plan that was announced in the beginning of March of this year and since that one announcement we have made two further announcements to continue to support the Māori vaccine roll-out.Harete Hipango: So as the Minister says that the Government has thrown—thrown—significant support to Māori if it was so good why are Māori vaccination rates lagging?Hon PEENI HENARE: As I've travelled around to a number of DHBs and Māori health providers it's now quite clear that the Māori communities we need to reach now to bring up Māori vaccination rates are communities that might not be connected to Māori health providers acknowledging that 86 percent of Māori actually go through their GPs and primary health organisations (PHOs) and not Māori health providers. Secondly many of them are in rural remote isolated areas which means that in order to reach them we must give more support because if we actually supported our Māori health providers on a per-jab basis then they wouldn't be able to meet the overheads to get into the rural remote communities to reach the community that we're trying to target over the coming weeks.Hon Kiritapu Allan: On the basis of the conversations that the Minister had going around the country and in order to support those rural and remote communities what support has he provided to Māori providers like Ngāti Porou Hauora to support such initiatives?Hon PEENI HENARE: I thank the member for the question. To support the already free mobile clinics that are utilised on Te Tai Rāwhiti over the past week working alongside the DHB and Māori health providers proud to announce that more support for mobile clinics across Te Tai Rāwhiti has been expedited. In fact my understanding is that the wheels of those clinics will be hitting the ground in the next 24 hours.Harete Hipango: So why did the Ministry of Health refuse to give Māori health providers data that would've helped them increase Māori vaccination rates and keep the wheels of that bus going on?Hon PEENI HENARE: The situation with data is that through the Ministry of Health we are already providing quite a granular data set to Māori health providers. We are supported by PHOs and GPs to continue to give data and good data to Māori health providers so that they can reach those communities that we're finding it hard to engage with. But I will say this: a number of Māori health providers in this country have actually acknowledged something that we've all come to realise now and that is that even they have lost connection with a number of these communities over many years. They are keen to re-engage and we're keen to support them to do that.