‘Give us the funding, we’re ready’ - South Auckland locality kingpins champing at the bit

Give us the funding, we’re ready to go,” says one of the Ōtara- Papatoetoe locality kingpins, South Seas Healthcare chief executive Lemalu Silao Vaisola-Sefo.

“We know it’s going to take time to change the way the system behaves,” says Mr Vaisola-Sefo. “We’ve been working on this prototype for two years, but we are signalling that we are ready here and now.”

He says the community has been hit hard by measles and then two years of COVID-19.

“[To] be honest, our providers are un­der the pump, they are inundated with work and we have a community in need of help. So, we are saying ‘resource us to scale up and let’s get started’.”

Twenty partner organisations have so far joined the south Auckland local­ity, the largest of the nine current pro­totypes. Member organisations are six general practices, mana whenua Ngāti Tamaoho and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, social housing providers, Zoom Pharmacy, Totara Hospice, disability providers, aged-care organisations, and NGOs.

An interim locality governance group has been established with representa­tives from each partner and co-chairs from mana whenua and South Seas.

All partners last month signed a draft charter, which was submitted to Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand.

The six participating practices do not all sit within the likely locality bound­ary. For example, Southpoint Family Doctors is in Manukau City, and Green­stone Family Clinic is in Manurewa.

“Our model is not defined by geog­raphy,” says Mr Vaisola-Sefo, “it’s a re­lational model. We can’t be confined by boundaries.

“If you think about COVID-19, we had a lot of people [turning up at the Ōtara community-based assessment centre] from all over Auckland, and they weren’t all Pacific.”

This view was supported in a previous interview with Te Whatu Ora national director Pacific health Markerita Poutasi.

“That ability to not have boundaries was a strength and I would think it will continue to work that way with Pacific providers,” said Ms Poutasi.

Mr Vaisola-Sefo says South Seas Healthcare is trialling a model of care to be rolled out across the locality: “Our patients are talking to GPs about a whole range of issues now – education, housing, food on the table – so we have this template, a one-stop shop under one roof. It’s only part of the solution, but those 15 minutes should focus on what GPs should be doing, leave the rest to the integrated team.”

Mr Vaisola-Sefo says the locality group is also working with Te Whatu Ora and PHOs to reach out to further practices; “it’s not trying to take your patients and it’s not a merger”.

“Practices will keep their capitation, what we are interested in is the stuff not currently being delivered by primary care.

“Health [for the Pacific community] does not just mean physical health, it means being able to go to work for three days without needing a day off, accessing services that feel familiar, your kids are going to school, and being able to contribute to your local schools and churches; it’s about wellbe­ing, for yourself, your family, and your community.”

How funding will flow through the locality is yet to be determined, but Mr Vaisola-Sefo is hopeful decisions are imminent with the recent appointment of new national commissioner Abbe Anderson to Te Whatu Ora.

Ms Anderson was previously chief executive of Brisbane North Primary Health Network, which is allied with Brisbane’s Metro North Hospital and Health Service.

Public health consultant Don Matheson was general manager of this combined, integrated care entity prior to his return to New Zealand in June 2020, to take up a short-term role with­in the Ministry of Health as deputy di­rector general of public health and primary care transformation.