Spike in Covid cases puts pressure on South Auckland health providers

September 30, 2021

Nineteen of the newer cases are linked to emergency or transitional housing.

The sudden spike in Covid-19 cases has caused alarm amongst South Auckland providers and social services already under pressure.

Nineteen of the newer cases are linked to emergency or transitional housing.

They say Government support has been strong but more funding is needed to cope with rapidly growing need.

Māngere Budgeting staff were up at 5am on Thursday packing urgent food parcels.

Before lockdown they were doing 250 a week - now it’s 2,000.

“The stress level is just incredibly high. We need some more from the Government - they have done a tremendous job to date but the need is not going away, we need to do more dialogue to make sure no one misses out,” Māngere Budgeting Services’ Darryl Evans said.


The service is responding to an urgent call for help from the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa.

At least 100 families are arriving to collect their urgent food supplies, coming to the church minister’s house makes all the difference because it’s a place where they feel comfortable.

“A lot of our families have not gone to work right now and if their income is limited to 60-70 per cent, trying to put food on the table is a struggle,” Reverend Victor Pouesi said.

The struggle at grassroots level is being directly felt by health and social service providers as most Covid cases are in South Auckland.

“Even though there's one case, there will be around 15 people involved in that one case. Not only is it growing really fast but the pace of it,” Lemalu Silao Vaisola Sefo of South Seas Healthcare explained.

South Seas Healthcare has 230 staff who provide a raft of services. Last week alone they vaccinated 2000 people

The station opened this morning in Otara, where a large community of Pacific people reside.

“You’ve got to have funding that's going to sustain the rollout of the Covid response, you can’t sustain it with how it's going at the moment,” Sefo said.

Health experts say the pressure on all medical and social services is not easing.

“We need to engage people that these communities trust to work with us, and we need door-to-door approaches for testing and identifying cases,” Auckland University Associate Professor of Public Health Dr Colin Tukuitonga said. 

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