'Issues were amplified': What we learnt from the Covid-19 public inquiry

This week, a range of organisations and individuals spoke at the first public hearings on the Covid-19 inquiry to reflect on the Government’s response to the pandemic. On Tuesday, representatives of disability communities from Kaikaranga, Disability Connect and Te Roopu Waiora shared their experiences. Here are some things that stood out to us:

Communications weren’t reaching whānau hauā and disabled people in a timely or appropriate way

Tania Kingi, the chief executive of Te Roopu Waiora said: “We had whānau that thought Delta was an airline for quite a period after the Delta virus hit our shores.” Pamphlet drops served no purpose for whānau kāpō and sign language interpreters were fingerspelling completely new words. She said that as a new language was created, dominated by English medical terms, “someone forgot to let our communities know so that we could make sense of what this language was and what it meant.”

She said some communities that are not provided with appropriate or adequate public information are also unknown or largely ignored by decision makers who are responsible for informing the public. The lack of Māori, relevant and accessible information, she said, meant the fear factor overwhelmed whānau, leading them to turn to online groups to get information. 

Lack of social support

According to the main report of the inquiry, “Disabled people were already among those most lonely and socially isolated pre-pandemic, and the Covid-19 restrictions left some further isolated or marginalised, negatively impacting their mental health and overall wellbeing.”

Sonia Hawea, CEO of Kaikaranga (formally Taikura Trust) said that because there weren’t usual outlets through education or getting out and about with others, resilience and psychosocial factors started to show up and present strongly. 

Barry de Geest, chair of Kaikaranga, said that no thought was given to the social side of how people were supported. “You need to think about every part of a person’s life, not just having a lockdown, but how people are entertained and keep their minds active.”

Lack of support for family carers 

During the lockdowns, many whānau had to assume the role of carer without training, knowledge or the resources to do so. Cherie Cawdron, the operations manager at Disability Connect, is also a parent to a disabled person, and said those were “dark days”. She lost two long-term carers that had been with her family for 10 years which meant that she had to suddenly take up caring work. “I don’t think people understand that you can’t work 24/7.” 

Despite this, respite facilities were closed during lockdown. “A liquor shop could be opened, but they closed respite. I just cannot understand the mentality behind that. It really devalued what families were doing.”

Cawdron added: “a lot of the time there was no specific enough instruction for people that were caring for people in their own home, because it was all targeted at what providers do, what organisations do, rather than what the families do who are caring for their disabled child, and those people like ourselves who have to recruit their own carers and manage their own carer pool.” This meant that information and support was often provided and sought on social media. “We didn’t have anywhere to turn, so we turned to each other.” 

Inaccessible and unsafe mandatory procedures

The inquiry report included many anecdotes of the inaccessibility of mandatory procedures such as testing, mask-wearing, contact tracing and getting vaccinated. People who couldn’t drive were unable to find a vehicle to take them through drive-through testing. Wearing masks made it difficult for deaf and hard of hearing communities to lip-read. People without phones could not effectively contact trace and sometimes QR codes were physically unreachable. 

Before vaccination services were brought to the homes of disabled people, vaccination centres weren’t a place where vulnerable people felt comfortable going. De Geest said he was herded into a line at a vaccination centre. “If you’re in a chair, you’re sitting low and you’ve got all the breath above you and people above you that you can’t see and you’re quite crowded in.”

Lack of post-lockdown initiatives 

Cawdron said that initially, after lockdowns people still took cautionary measures such as mask-wearing, but “eventually that eroded and it wasn’t really back to normal for us… I just felt like we were still actually protecting ourselves from the outside world.” 

She said a lot of families that she’s still in contact with are experiencing anxiety and mental health issues with being out in the community and not feeling safe. For Cawdron herself, her husband has left his job to assist her at home which has left her financial situation “crumbled”. 

Government overlooked community leadership

It was through community partners that vulnerable people who were fearful of coming outside could get vaccinated through mobile vaccination services and home visits. “That never came from the Government, it was actually us as a community that did that,” said de Geest. “In fact, we paid for a lot of that ourselves through our own organisations because there was no money available for transport or other issues."

In the report, there is a consensus that the steps the Government took to mitigate risks to disabled people through tagged funding were inadequate. It also said those in leadership and advocacy roles for disabled people found engaging with and advising the Government frustrating and ineffective.

Hawea says local communities know what their neighbourhoods need and that public health responses should be locally led and implemented. “Communities are very pragmatic. They’re resilient and they need to be involved from the beginning.” Hawea stressed that there must be proactive planning of public health strategy that involves the disability community and local community leadership.

Many issues aren’t new

Kingi said: “I think the issues that we experienced during Covid were issues that have been embedded in our society for a very long time. They were just amplified by Covid.”

For example, Kingi identified that Māori and Pacific communities stepped in beyond their contractual obligations despite often not having the disability competency or experience to sufficiently engage with whānau hauā, while Pākehā organisations lacked the cultural safety to be able to engage with our communities.

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