Nurse Describes Marae Vaccination Incentives and Fear-Based Policies
Professional Observation from a Registered Nurse
As the mandates were rolling out and I was about to be dismissed from my job with a Kaupapa Māori service, much of what I saw and heard was confusing and disturbing. A patient arrived at the Marae from an area under restrictions due to Covid cases. Staff identified her as having a mild cold and panicked, closed the Marae, self-tested and self-isolated. Doctors and nurses who you would think could help calm matters with information seemed more panicked than anyone. Rather than sharing data on risk or common sense responses such as staying home when sick and ways to bolster immunity, they talked about how scared they felt and encouraged everyone to remain locked at home.
Management described with huge excitement that an undisclosed, very large sum of money had been offered to the Marae. The contract merely required that they make the Marae serviceable as a vaccination centre. This would cost a tiny portion of the money on offer and they wanted ideas from staff about what the rest of the money could be used for, such as purchasing new cars and other resources which had previously never been affordable.
This was the same time that they began to embrace mask-wearing, and speaking about whether and how to keep the unvaccinated separate from the vaccinated at events on the Marae, what rules should be put in place and whether there should be an exclusion rule for the unvaccinated. They spoke about needing to wear full PPE during home visits of the unvaccinated and how to keep these home visits contact-free, such as only staying on the doorstep (in full PPE). Doctors and nurses listened to unqualified staff suggesting these new rules and offered no basic advice. They agreed emphatically with various ideas put forward by anyone from social workers to kitchen and administration staff and which were based purely on fear, without any reference to evidence and/or common sense. It was an extremely surreal and sad time, with a sense that pharma dollars were the modern-era version of blankets and rum.
