Medical authorities have an uphill battle on their hands, working closely with Pasifika community leaders and churches to encourage overstayers to get tested for Covid-19.
Several overstayers have told 1 NEWS they don't believe Government assurances that their details won't be passed on to Immigration. Nearly a third of overstayers, about 5000 people, are Pasifika.
1 NEWS spoke to one older Tongan couple who live with extended family and go to church.
Having been served their deportation papers earlier this year, they said they had no trust in the system and didn’t want to go to the doctor or hospital in case they got sick.
They don't record their names or address anywhere. Even though they're terrified of catching Covid-19, they're determined to stay under the radar.
When asked what they would do if they got sick, they replied: “We use our Tongan medicine. We use the skin of the trees and leaves, put on the pot and cook it. ... I trust God.”
It’s hoped pop-up testing centres set up in Pasifika churches would help overstayers feel comfortable enough to turn up to be tested.
“To all people who do not have legal visa status here, come out and be tested. It’s good for them and good for us all,” Reverend Setaita Kinahoi-Veikune, the director of Pasifika Ministries at the New Zealand Methodist Church, said.
Associate Health Minister and Minister for Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa said getting tested wouldn’t affect a person’s immigration status.
“The information that is actually being collected here is not going to be used for anything else,” she said at a testing station today.
She said any information collected would only be used to tell someone about their Covid-19 test result.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins also assured people they shouldn’t be hesitant to get a test because of their immigration status.
"If people are here on an expired visa and they go and get a test we will not join those two dots together,” he said on Wednesday.
"Regardless of your personal circumstances, if you're asked to get a test or you're in that group that's at greater risk, please get the test. We won't use that information to punish you in some other way."
Authorities are also assuring that anyone who tests positive for the virus and is put into a managed quarantine facility would not be targeted by Immigration.
A petition signed by 35,000 people calling for a way for overstayers to gain legal status was handed to Parliament in July.
SHARE ME