The Canterbury District Health Board Pacific Plan took two years to implement after widespread consultation and workshops with churches, Pacific community groups and Canterbury DHB health professionals.

Pasifika Futures CEO Debbie Sorensen, who heads the Whānau Ora agency that brokered the partnership with the Canterbury DHB, says the strategic plan will improve the health and wellbeing for Pacific families in Canterbury.

“It’s an important document because it provides a foundation in which we continue to invest and resource services that will improve health outcomes.

The first thing we did was look at all of the Pacific health and social indicators in the Canterbury region and it told us some very interesting things. It told us things like what Pacific people were being admitted to hospital for and if those conditions could have been prevented. If we have good care in the community and if our people can access health services earlier, it often prevents conditions from worsening.”

The priorities in the Health Plan include recognising the need for services to be co-created and codesigned by Pacific families to improve access and quality, encouraging more Pacific workers into the healthcare sector, involving the community in research and data and strengthening the partnership and leadership relationships between the community and the Canterbury DHB.

“When we spoke to the community, we were hearing comments like ‘we’ve been consulted in the past about what we need but often we don’t see any results.’ So, it was very important for us to have a Pacific health plan developed, the first in the Canterbury region, so we could implement some of the priorities within the plan,” says Sorensen.

One of the priorities is to provide continued support and funding for the Etu Pasifika medical clinic in Christchurch, which is the largest health provider for the Pacific community in the Canterbury region.

“The community told us that when they walk into a health service, they want to feel welcomed and they don’t want to feel like they are just a number. One of the priorities is to have a Pacific centre of excellence in the community and bringing together a number of services under that umbrella.”

Clinical Director for Etu Pasifika, Dr Monica Nua-George, says the Health Plan has been embraced by the centre and its community.

“There was some reassurance and accountability of what this health plan would be as we continuously provided feedback and consulted the Pasifika community at every step of the way. It gave us the autonomy to have our say about how we want our healthcare to be instead of having it being dictated to us,” she says.

#pmafamily  #pmaunite

Date: Friday 28 August 2020