Introducing Telemedicine

PHP is the first health practice in the area to bring telemedicine to it's COVID-19 response. This will aid in keeping our precious workers and patients safe.

Thank you to Ministry of Health for supporting high needs Pacific communities respond to Covid-19.

Facilities outside the front of PHP

Display screen inside PHP

When Art and Health Colide

Article Source: Ministry for Pacific Peoples www.mpp.govt.nz/news-and-stories/when-art-and-health-collide

(Picture caption: Artwork from Michel Tuffery's Handle with Care series.)

With an overload of information about COVID-19 being disseminated, it is important Pacific and other vulnerable communities feel they are being spoken to directly. 

This is why Pacific Health Plus (PHP) is using artwork by Wellington-based Pacific artist Michel Tuffery to help inform communities about best practice hygiene for keeping safe from the spread of COVID-19. 

The Owner and Board Chair at the Porirua-based Pacific primary healthcare service John Fiso says of the 2234 people enrolled at PHP, 60 percent are high needs patients with chronic conditions. 

“Therefore, it is essential we inform our patients of good hygiene practices to keep the vulnerable safe and healthy. 

“We must go over and above to protect our Pacific communities.” 

The PHP team approached Michel, having worked with him before, to develop some images the organisation could use for sharing information which spoke directly to Pacific communities. 

Of Samoan, Rarotongan and Ma’ohi Tahitian heritage, Michel is not only a talented artist, but also a passionate educator who openly shares his kauapapa and knowledge to empower youth through residencies and workshops for school-aged children in New Zealand and abroad.  

Michel’s Handle with Care series, take inspiration from postal services, using Pacific and New Zealand postage stamps redesigned with individuals wearing face masks and rubber gloves, stamped over with a fragile sticker. 

The artist explains his series shows how fragile the Pacific community is, and that we really need to look after our elderly, and those with health conditions. 

“It is hard to know how you can help from isolation but as an artist, creating art to spread important messages, is how I can do my bit for my communities in this tough time,” Michel adds.

The images have been printed as posters and put up around the local community in the pharmacies and supermarkets as well as at neighbouring health clinics and on Facebook and websites.  

Michel’s prior work with PHP included assisting with youth engagement and therapy classes as well as decorating a mural outside PHP premises to brighten the otherwise severe surroundings of the building in east Porirua.  

Pacific Health Plus is still open, doing flu vaccinations, child immunisations and seeing patients using a variety of methods such as staggered appointments, video/phone consultations. 

Visit the Unite Against COVID-19 website for all you need to know about COVID-19 in New Zealand.

Joining the fight against Measles

PHP Senior Nurse Kailua Faafoi, volunteered to head to Samoa to help with the vaccination effort against measles - the disease that has currently claimed so many lives.

Read more:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118378182/back-home-from-heart-of-samoas-deadly-measles-outbreak-nurse-shares-her-story?

Otago University Partnership

Over the next ten weeks four medical and health students from Otago University will work at Pacific Health Plus, a primary healthcare service, in Cannons Creek, Porirua, on a research project to better understand patients, their families and the community.

Of the 2910 people enrolled at Pacific Health Plus, 93% are high needs patients with acute, recurring problems, often related to heart and renal disease. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is considerably higher in Porirua (8%) than in other areas in the Wellington Region (4% in Kāpiti, 5% in Wellington, and 6% in Lower Hutt) – and is worst in Cannons Creek.

The project, co-funded by John Fiso, Chairman of Fiso Group and Pacific Health Plus, and Otago University, will help build a meaningful picture of the patient community in Cannons Creek, beyond what the existing clinical data is providing, to improve the response to these significant patient needs.

Dr Rosemary Hall, diabetes physician and senior lecturer at Otago University, will oversee the students with Professor Jeremy Krebs.

“This is an opportunity for the students to explore and understand inequities in our health system and wider determinants on health,” says Dr Rosemary Hall. “It will give them insight into how healthcare works in some parts of New Zealand they may not be familiar with, and hopefully this experience will empower them to make positive changes in the future.”

“We all know the shocking statistics which reveal huge inequity in our health system, but we need to better understand why, and how this can be changed,” says John Fiso, chairman of Fiso Group and Pacific Health Plus. “And we need to understand this from the community.”

The students will be working closely with Fred Ama and Siaosi Mafi, who are established in the community and run exercise, healthy eating and youth programmes from Pacific Health Plus. Together they will spend time with Pacific Health Plus patients and will talk to them about a variety of issues to try and build a picture of that person and their family, and what may be the cause of health problems.

“It is clear that responding to data and charts is not working for the families of Cannons Creek,” said Mr Fiso. “We need to find out why. We can do this by interacting with them, by understanding their worries and needs, who else is in the family, and what is happening in that family – it is not just about clinical data, numbers and spreadsheets – it’s about building a holistic picture to then find a holistic solution.”

“People may look at Pacific Health Plus and think, wow, a health service for the highest needs between a burnt out pub and a stickered building – but inside are real people with real families who are tired of waiting for better outcomes.”

“At Pacific Health Plus we are creating our own solutions, we will do what we can in our own patch for our own community and we are really pleased that Rosemary and Jeremy at Otago University acknowledge this and are able to help us,” said Mr Fiso.

Lee Pearce has just joined Fiso Group to assist with overseeing Pacific Health Plus. (Further information on Lee is in the notes below.) Lee has a long history in the health sector and is focused on increasing the efficiency and quality of service at Pacific Health Plus, on preventative solutions for patients, on building capacity in the workforce, and improving systems and data capture.

“I am hoping this experience for the students will ignite a passion for Pacific health issues,” said Ms Pearce. “We desperately need medical and health professionals to really understand the patient base, the patient and their family life journey and the complexities that exist within. Health is not ‘one size fits all’.”

Pacific Health Plus Youth Fono

An excellent start to the Pacific Health Plus (PHP) Youth Fono this morning. Growing the possibilities and potential of our youth leadership. This first step in preparation for our youth Conference in August.

Molly Fiso, Robyn Lush, Kitiona Yala-Tauira, Fred Ama, Rebecca Ama, Jayne Paese, Sia Temu, and Shelley Addison thank you for all your skills in delivering this excellent programme for youth to find solutions to community health and wellbeing.

Michel Tuffery with Pacific Youth

What an honour to have internationally renowned artist Michel Tuffery ONZM of Samoan Rarotonga and Tahitian heritage share his knowledge and experiences with our PHP youth. We appreciate greatly the proceeds of some of his artwork donated to our Pacific youth.

We thank him for his generosity (he spoke from the heart of giving back) and it is these people of goodwill that improve our most in need of communities.

Fa'afetai

Pacific Health Plus Launch

120 people gather in the heart of Porirua to hear about how they can be part of changing lives in Pacific communities.

A group of over 120 people gathered on a cold, blustery Autumn night in a hall above a burnt out pub on Bedford Street in Cannons Creek Porirua, to hear about a ground-breaking project to change health outcomes in one of the neediest Pacific communities in New Zealand.

In a 'first', the renowned research centre, Maurice Wilkins Centre, hosted by the University of Auckland, will team up with the only Pacific owned & governed health service in the Wellington region, Pacific Health Plus - literally based on the street below in Cannons Creek - to battle very significant health problems faced by Pacific people.

The project will look to the community to further ground-breaking research which has revealed that Pacific and Māori people have a gene that predisposes them to heart disease, diabetes and obesity and also to study youth to track impacts of sugar.

Everyone in the room was buzzing to be part of something which will draw attention to Pacific needs with real tangible outcomes and ways to improve quality of life and life expectancy.

Speaking to the excited and expectant group was an impressive line-up of VIPs:

• John Fiso, chair of the Fiso Investment Group and Pacific Health Plus

• Professor Peter Shepherd, Deputy Director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre

• Hon Kris Faafoi, Member of Parliament for Mana

• Mayor of Porirua, Mike Tana

• Paul Eagle, Member of Parliament for Rongotai

• Dr Rosemary Hall, Endocrine, Diabetes & Diabetes Research Centre, Capital & Coast District Health Board

• Pastor Teremoana Tauira Maka, Pacific Health Plus Advisory Board, Pastor of the Victory Church

• Reverend Perema Leasi

Also in attendance was the team from the Maurice Wilkins Centre; representatives from health and social service providers in Porirua; significant church leaders; members of the Cannons Creek community and Pacific Health Plus board members.

Pastor Teremoana, as the first speaker of the evening, explained how Pacific Health Plus, the medical centre in Cannons Creek (previously called Porirua Health Services) had been servicing the community for 10 years but acknowledged that the time had come to take the service to the next level, and that recent investment by the Fiso Investment Group will allow this.

Mike Tana, Mayor of Porirua said the evening was a ‘celebration of Porirua and Pacific Health Plus’ and thanked everyone for their ‘love of Porirua’ and how this next step with a new and meaningful research project was a positive one for the area with lives to be changed for the better. Mr Tana said that self-determination is the best way forward for communities and this project - ‘for Pacific by Pacific is an awesome example of this’.

Hon Kris Fafooi, MP for Mana, acknowledged John Fiso by saying how since the Fiso Investment Group came in to help Pacific Health Plus he had seen ‘nothing but action’, and the speed with which the partnership with Maurice Wilkins was established shows commitment to a community. Minister Fafooi also thanked the Maurice Wilkins Centre for recognition that ‘for Pacific by Pacific’ was the most effective way forward.  

John Fiso, chair of the Fiso Investment Group and Pacific Health Plus, thanked the VIPs in attendance and those in the room who had shown goodwill and had helped.

Mr Fiso acknowledged the importance of data as part of properly understanding problems and determining solutions and that self-determination was critical to the data being used successfully - “with research owned and delivered by the people who will benefit from the outcomes to ensure integrity of the data”.

“This is a milestone for Pacific Health Plus - a project which will bring real change,” said Mr Fiso. “However, we need more debate about solutions for Pacific people and we cannot look at health in isolation - we need to factor in housing, employment and education as part of the real solution.

“We will seek further partnerships as a way forward - but we recognise that building trust and confidence through successful delivery of our projects is key to this,” said Mr Fiso.

Professor Peter Shepherd, Deputy Director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre commented on what a privilege it is to work with Pacific Health Plus. He explained how Professor Maurice Wilkins, who the Centre is named after, was a New Zealander who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine, and that for Professor Shepherd, the centre’s name signifies the potential for New Zealand to use scientific research to achieve better outcomes for its citizens.

“It is time to break boundaries and work as one to change the health landscape for Pacific people in New Zealand,” said Professor Shepherd. “And we are not going to change the world from our ivory towers behind university walls - but by working in the community as partners.

“We have to move fast, we can’t waste time,” Professor Shepherd said. “We cannot assume that because medicine is tested on people in the US that it will work for our Māori and Pacific communities - we must look at how genetics influence this. We also need to harness links schools, communities and education to help achieve better outcomes.

“I am excited about the opportunity Pacific Health Plus provides for the community to be part of finding the answers and creating the solutions. The fact we are here tonight opening a cutting edge research centre above a burnt out pub that sits beside a red stickered building in this very needy area of Wellington is symbolic of what Pacific people face - and the Maurice Wilkins Centre wants to be part of changing that and helping the community reach the heights it deserves.”

Dr Rosemary Hall said that Pacific people, who have highest rate of diabetes in NZ, had been failed and their needs were not being met. “We need to better understand the reasons for different rates of diabetes within different groups and see the situation in context of the bigger picture. Having evidence, from research, and having Pacific lead this is critical,” Dr Hall said.

Further information on the Pacific Health Plus and Maurice Wilkins Centre research partnership be below.

The Maurice Wilkins Centre is a national Centre of Research Excellence that brings together over 400 of New Zealand’s top scientists and clinicians from all over the country.

Pacific Health Plus is a primary healthcare service in Cannons Creek, Porirua, and is the only Pacific owned and governed healthcare service for Pacific people in the Wellington region. It services over 2000 people in the Cannons Creek community.

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Pacific Health Plus

Pacific Health Plus, based in Cannons Creek, Porirua, was established as a subsidiary of the Fiso Investment Group in January 2019. It was formerly known as Porirua Health Services (PHS) which had been operating for 10 years but during 2018 came under severe financial pressure. As a result, the Board of PHS embarked on a formal bid process to identify new owners. This was conducted by legal firm Gibson Sheat and accountancy BDO Spicers with five bids submitted. The Fiso Investment Group was notified as the successful bidder in December 2018 and the new entity, Pacific Health Plus (PHP), was set up. Pacific Health Plus is a primary care provider to 2000 local residents who are mainly of Pacific descent.

Maurice Wilkins Centre

www.mauricewilkinscentre.org

The Maurice Wilkins Centre is a national Centre of Research Excellence that involves over 400 of New Zealand’s top scientists and clinicians from Universities, CRIs and independent research organisations across New Zealand. The Centre harnesses and links New Zealand’s outstanding expertise in biomedical research to develop cutting-edge drugs and vaccines, tools for early diagnosis and prevention, and new models of disease.