The new Director of Pacific Health at the Waitemata District Health Board, Dr Josephine Aumea Herman, says she will use her expertise of leading the Covid-19 response in the Cook Islands – where to date they have not recorded a single case – in her new role.
The Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) member, who is a past recipient of the group’s service award for her work in improving Pacific health, last year resigned from her position as the Secretary of Health for the Cook Islands and this week started her new job at Waitemata DHB, which covers the area of North and West Auckland.
She says the lessons she learnt from leading the successful national Covid-19 response in the Cook Islands will be useful when addressing the concerns around the pandemic from the Pacific community in the Waitemata area, which serves a population of almost 650,000 people, with around seven percent Pacific.
“The Cook Islands was very successful in dealing with Covid-19 because we were able to communicate very clearly to our people and we allowed our community to inform the design of our response. That was the most critical and fundamental element.
In Waitemata, we have a bigger geographic area and population to cover but I think that the infrastructure is here and all we need to do is connect the pieces of the puzzle.”
Dr Aumea Herman, a public health physician and general practitioner, holds a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Auckland. She was also a medical officer of health with Auckland Regional Public Health Service from 2017 to 2018, where she helped lead the response to the wider region’s mumps outbreak.
She says that her new role is an “honour and a privilege” and it gives her an opportunity to continue to serve the Pacific community.
“I’m walking into an existing space where we have very good people already on the ground who know so much about our Pacific population that we serve. My contribution is to ensure our people continue to get the best service which will contribute to their quality of life.”