The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency says the Ministry of Health has asked for a 24-hour extension to release Māori vaccination data after losing a landmark decision in the High Court on Monday.
Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere says the Ministry of Health is running out of time to release data on unvaccinated Māori after losing a landmark decision in the High Court on Monday. Photo: Stuff / Jason Dorday
The agency says it has agreed to the request, but the Ministry is refusing to comment.
But Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere said he was fast losing patience with the Government department.
"The ministry asked our lawyers this morning and we've agreed," he said. "But it's running out of time. The ministry can only play this game for so long."
The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency took legal action against the ministry for refusing to release data on people who had not been vaccinated.
It asked the ministry to provide the contact details and vaccination status of all unvaccinated Māori in the North Island.
The outcome of the High Court proceeding was released on Monday, ruling against the ministry for withholding the information. The ministry was given 72 hours to respond to the decision.
The Ministry of Health refused to respond to questions about whether it had asked for the extension, or if it was planning to appeal the High Court ruling.
But on Wednesday a spokeswoman said it acknowledged the court's findings and would be reconsidering its position in line with the decision.
Tamihere said it will be able to use the ministry data to text and email Māori who are unvaccinated.
Then individual Whānau Ora providers will be able to target specific streets identified as having large numbers of unvaccinated people, with leaflet drops and vaccinations.
His thoughts were echoed by Turuki Healthcare chief executive Te Puea Winiata (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi te Rangi), who said it was an important decision for Māori health providers.
Winiata said having more in-depth information from the Ministry of Health would mean its units could be more effective in targeting the unvaccinated in areas such as south Auckland.
Figures released by the Ministry of Health show in Counties Manukau, only 55 percent of Māori are fully vaccinated, while 74 percent have received one dose.
"We need to know where to target our efforts," Winiata said. "I don't want to intrude in people's lives and we don't necessarily want names and street addresses, but we want to be able to target streets where we know there are low vaccination rates."
The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency had asked the ministry in August to provide it with personal and contact details, vaccination status and vaccination booking status of all unvaccinated Māori in the North Island.
It said it would allow it to increase the Māori vaccination rate by targeting their services.
The two parties then entered into a data-sharing agreement in September, which included a number of privacy protections.
Under the agreement, the data could only be used to identify and engage unvaccinated or unbooked individuals to encourage them to get immunised.
But then on 1 October, the Ministry of Health said that it would only provide the agency with the details of applicants with the Covid-19 vaccination and booking status data of people who had previously received services from a Whānau Ora.
Late last month the ministry declined to authorise the sharing of individual data that could identify individuals who were not vaccinated and said it would only share street-level mapping showing areas with unvaccinated communities.
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