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- Introduction
- Waitemata Health Commitment to Maori Health, from Now to June 2000
- Implementation of Year One Objectives
- Role of the General Manager
- Treaty of Waitangi – The Project Brief
- Transparency
- Notes
- Appendices
Introduction
In October 1998, the new CEO of Waitemata Health Ltd (Waitemata Health), Dr Dwayne Crombie, reviewed the company’s approach to Maori Health. He started by bringing Maori staff together, resulting in the development of a Maori Working Party. Their primary goal was to provide a management process which would enable Maori staff to recommend to the CEO the most effective method for Waitemata Health to improve its response and service delivery to Maori.
The subsequent report of the Maori Working Party was considered at the Senior Management level and approved for further work. The report contained a number of recommendations but confirmed the need for the appointment of a Manager to co-ordinate Waitemata Health’s approach to Maori health.
The first General Manager of Maori Health was appointed in May 1999 and is part of the senior management team at Waitemata Health. This enables the company to take a strategic view of Maori Health.
One of the first tasks for the General Manager of Maori Health was to include a meaningful section on Maori health in the Waitemata Health Business Plan for 1999/2002. Previous business plans had talked about progress that had already been made, but not about progress that the company was committed to making.
The resultant section in the business plan contains key objectives and deadlines that the General Manager, Maori Health and Waitemata Health as an organisation are responsible for achieving.
Waitemata Health Commitment to Maori Health, from Now to June 2000
The following is an extract from the Key Strategies Section of the Waitemata Health Ltd Business Plan 1999/2002. Many of the tasks noted are included in a specifically funded formal contract with the Health Funding Authority. As such, Waitemata Health is obliged to deliver on those promises as set out in the contract.
| Key objectives include the development of a formal publicly consulted five-year Waitemata Health Maori Health Strategy by June 2000. As components of the larger Maori Health Strategy Project, Waitemata Health will also improve the effectiveness of our partnerships with iwi and Maori urban health providers. We will achieve this by adopting a common set of principles, which will feature in every alliance we have with any of the key Maori stakeholders. In relation to local iwi and Maori urban health providers, we will consolidate and strengthen our current relationships with Ngati Whatua and Te Ha O Te Oranga, Te Puna Hauora o Te Raki Pae Whenua and Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust. In relation to our regional services, we will also establish and develop similar health provider relationships with Tainui and Te Tai Tokerau. The focus of these alliances will target the health needs of Maori service users and their whanau and, in so doing, will enhance our capacity to be consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This activity will also improve our capacity to pass an in-depth Maori Cultural Audit, as is possible under the terms of our present contracts with the Health Funding Authority. In summary, the key strategies to be implemented over the next 12 months are:
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Implementation of Year One Objectives
These Year one Objectives will be achieved in the ways shown in the following pictorial representation.
Role of the General Manager
The purpose of the General Manager of Maori Health at Waitemata Health, as set out in the job description, is:
- to provide leadership and strategic direction, with a focus on helping the Company document, and achieve a strategic plan for Maori Health
- to build strong relationships with key stakeholders
- to provide leadership to a team of committed Maori health professionals
- to be involved in quality management
- to contribute to the achievement of Waitemata Health’s organisational and business plan objectives
- to forge a shared vision of growth and development of Maori Health Services which improve health outcomes for Maori.
As a member of the senior management team, the General Manager of Maori Health drives a shared vision for the direction of Waitemata Health with respect to Maori health.
The General Manager of Maori Health fulfils, amongst other things:
- a strategic role that will culminate in a strategic plan for Maori health advancement within and by Waitemata Health; and
- an operational role leading a team of Maori health professionals to provide quality health care services and aiming to create the same opportunity for Maori and non-Maori to enjoy good health.
[Click here to view Appendix One : Position Description - Manager, Maori Health (Waitemata Health)]
Treaty of Waitangi – The Project Brief
The Treaty of Waitangi Partnerships project, which has been approved by the Senior Management Group, aims to build enduring Treaty-based partnerships between Waitemata Health and iwi and urban Maori organisations in order to deliver more effective health services to Maori.
Waitemata Health is determined to improve the effectiveness of all its services for Maori people. Waitemata Health needs to know:
- what the health needs of Maori are
- what clinical and support services should be provided
- what present staff can do
- what present staff need to be empowered and/or retrained to do.
All these needs will be analysed, prioritised and included in a 5-Year Maori Health Plan. Planned service improvements will be developed in partnership with Maori whanau, hapu and iwi, and urban communities and in accordance with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Therefore, the quality of Waitemata Health’s relationships with Treaty partners and Maori communities is critical to its improvement in effectiveness as a health provider.
In order to create effective partnerships, the project aims towards agreement between partners on a shared philosophy regarding the delivery of high quality services to Maori and establishment of protocols for Waitemata Health’s interaction with Treaty partners.
[Click here to view Appendix Two : Treaty of Waitangi Partnerships - Project Brief of Project 1. Te Rito Maori Strategy Team (Waitemata Health)]
Transparency
Waitemata Health aims to be transparent about development of a Maori Health Strategy, in the belief that shared information will improve staff’s ownership of the various sub-strategies that need to be implemented over the next five years.
The following sections briefly describe two of the new, emerging sub-strategies:
Kui-a-KoroTM Group
Many of the Maori Health problems that arise in Waitemata Health services can be traced back to a mismanagement of tikanga 2 issues. To prevent continuing mismanagement, the first Maori staff meetings held were for senior Maori staff of around 55 years and over, regardless of their role within Waitemata Health. The approximate age limit was derived from an understanding of how urbanisation of Maoridom has occurred in the Waitemata Health catchment area (North and West Auckland and the Rodney, Kaipara and Hibiscus Coast areas, from the Harbour Bridge in the South to Wellsford in the North).
This group of staff have a number of common features in their lives. Most members:
- are mature, fluent and traditional speakers of Maori
- were raised on their papakainga 3 in rural areas and only became urbanised in the last 30 years
- were raised with traditional Maori values regarding tikanga, arts and crafts, history and healing
- have a solid understanding of their own whakapapa 4 and whanaungatanga 5
- have a solid reliance on and retention of oral forms of information communication.
This group has met three times. A brainstorming session at the second meeting highlighted a number of issues affecting Maori Health. A policy search was completed to determine if existing Waitemata Health policies adequately dealt with these issues. At the third meeting, gaps were highlighted and discussed resulting in the group prioritising the top three problems for the first year. These areas included policy development and staff training with respect to the deaths of Maori patients, including how tikanga requires that such an event should be handled, and the overall issue of staff recruitment.
Kotahitanga
Maori staff agree that the first time they were ever bought together deliberately by Waitemata Health was in October 1998 – the meeting convened by Dr Crombie.
This occurrence is an example of the lack of kotahitanga amongst Maori staff at present, due to the lack of common identity for Maori staff across the company.
In August, Te Rito Maori Strategy Team initiated the first newsletter for Maori staff, a bi-monthly publication. Both Maori and non-Maori staff gave positive feedback about the first edition. It is also envisaged that an e-mail group, bulletin boards and an intranet web page will be set up in the first year.
For the first time, a hui will take place in October for all Maori staff to meet and discuss best practice issues. The hui will develop agreed components of Maori job descriptions and practice standards that are in alignment with emerging national standards.
Te Rito Maori Strategy Team is presently evaluating the concept of having the company logo, in the form of a Greenstone pendant, made available to all Maori staff, and possibly to all staff who wish to wear a pounamu 6 pendant. The traditional Maori value of not purchasing Greenstone for oneself may mean that the company has to think creatively about possible sponsorship or a similar approach.
Readers interested in learning more about Maori services development at Waitemata Health are invited to contact Te Aniwa Tohovaka or Debbie Cairns (Project Officer) using the following:
- Te Aniwa Tohovaka
- Pager: 09-358-0825 x 2026 (key in your phone number or leave a message)
- Phone: 09-489-0553
- Fax: 09-486-8908
- E-mail: te_aniwa@whl.co.nz
- Debbie Cairns
- Phone: 09-486-1491 Extn. 3404
- Fax: 09-486-8908
- E-mail: cairnsd@whl.co.nz
Hei kona
Notes
- The HFA Maori Health priorities are (in order) asthma, diabetes, smoking cessation, injury prevention, hearing, immunisation, mental health and oral health.
- Maori customary protocols.
- Traditional home areas, where their ancestors have lived for centuries.
- Genealogy.
- Family-ness (where family refers to the extended family).
- Jade or greenstone.
