Bringing Culture into Care by Bradford Haami

Author:Bradford Haami
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Huia (NZ) Ltd
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

Expanding Horizons

One group Amohaere greatly admired for their loving work with the children in Princess Mary Hospital and later at Starship were the grandparent volunteers. This was a core of ten to fifteen women who substituted as caring grandparents for those children in the wards who had no visitors.

‘They would visit the children daily, bathe them, read them stories and take them for pushchair rides through the corridors. All were Pākehā except for one shy old Māori kuia, Aunty Mate. She would search me out when she was on site, carrying the Māori babies in her arms.’ Amohaere applauded their work and saw great value in making strong relationships with these kinds of groups.

Te Whānau Atawhai functioned in a similar way, for the same cause, but from a Māori cultural perspective. In its daily running, Te Whānau Atawhai’s Whānau Room was frequented by Māori elders as volunteers – kuia and kaumātua rostered to be on hand for the children and the visiting families. The order of the day always began with karakia at 8.30 a.m. followed by mihi, waiata and a briefing. These caring pākeke (elders) were essential to creating an environment of wellness, so much so that when children had to go home, many would cry to stay with them.

Volunteer kaumātua Brownie Williams saw the Whānau Atawhai unit as a ‘mini-mobile-marae stalking the wards of Auckland’s hospitals, trying to ensure that the medical system is sensitive to the needs of its Māori consumers’.1 His role was as simple as ‘sitting at the shoulder of a patient’s relatives, giving them the courage to ask the questions they needed answered. It may mean calling Māori outpatients who have missed a clinic appointment because they can’t afford the transport and are too ashamed to admit it, then picking them up in a board car, [and] promising clinical staff, they’re going to be late, but they’ll be here.’2

In addition to the pākeke volunteers, broadening the services of Te Whānau Atawhai meant finding more competent Māori workers. Amohaere had been contacted by Mavis Tuoro and Toby Curtis from the Auckland Institute of Technology, who ran a kaupapa Māori social services certificate programme. They were searching for placement opportunities for their Māori students. Mavis had previously been unable to place students in the hospital social work department because there was no belief that her programme had the right accreditation to warrant providing placements. Amohaere sought the support of her ally Mary Futter, and it was Nurse Futter who was responsible for opening the door to kaupapa Māori placements with the first student beginning in August 1990.3 From that time on, there were twice-yearly student placements. At the end of their allotted time, some of the students continued to volunteer in the unit. In time, when positions became available within Te Whānau Atawhai, they filled some of them.

Te Whānau Atawhai Annual Report for 1992 noted that staff in the unit consisted of four full-time kaiatawhai who worked closely with a team of kaumātua, kuia kaitiaki and volunteer kaiatawhai.

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