Kei nga ihoiho o nga maunga whakahi, kei nga wai whakatere taniwha, Nau mai, tahuti mai ki Te Hui. Ko Mihingarangi tenei e mihi atu nei, ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui ` Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei. He suffered a major heart attack after his diabetes went undiagnosed. - And they said, 'If you had the medicine back then, you wouldn't have been here. - We meet the Peita whanau who've been locked in a battle with ACC to get the support they desperately need. - It's fight to the death, and some people do die before ACC comes to the party. - And we talk to Minister of Health Andrew Little about our ailing mental health system. (SUBDUED THEME MUSIC) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 Tahuti mai. Maori are twice as likely to be diagnosed over the course of their life with diabetes. So when Steve Peita thought he was suffering the symptoms of diabetes, he went to his doctor for answers. But he never received a diabetes diagnosis or treatment for the condition ` a decision which would lead to the Peita whanau fighting a long-running battle to get the support he needs. Anei te purongo a John Boynton. - In 2014, Steve Peita suffered a major heart attack, and he was shocked to learn what caused it. - The doctor came up to me, and he said, 'Did you know you had diabetes? You've had it for a while, Mr Peita, ` a long time.' He said, 'Well, it's caused a lot of damage.' - But the Peita whanau had tried to get a diagnosis for Steve years earlier. - Why didn't I tell the doctor he... (SCOFFS) was wrong? - They've been locked in a six-year fight with ACC. - The undertone was effectively ` Steve's to blame; he's big, fat, lazy; he should have done more; that's why he now has diabetes; that's why he's had heart failure. - In the West Auckland suburb of Massey, towering power pylons dominate the suburban surrounds. For 30 years, Steve Peita worked atop of these pylons as an electrical linesman. Why was it such a passion for you? - Just different people ` meet heaps of different guys. Workmates were all good, and, you know, the job was interesting ` never the same. - He worked up to 60 hours a week, making a good living. - I put a lot in it because of where I wanted to be. I wanted my family to have something. - All that has been taken away because you believe you were never diagnosed with diabetes? - Yes, that's correct, yeah. - For the last seven years, Steve's been fighting a debilitating battle to stay alive, and it's a battle his whanau is convinced he could have avoided, had his doctors listen to them when they asked for help. - This has just taken a toll on us, personally ` on my family and myself. Yes, it has. - Around 2006, Steve and his wife, Jane Peita, first noticed something was wrong with Steve's health. What kind of symptoms were you experiencing? - Oh, one major one, I would just sleep. I fell off to sleep at the lights going red, you know? And my wife turned around` She saw the lights go green. She turned around and looked at me, and she saw me asleep at the wheel. - Steve put it down to his long work hours, but Jane believed he was showing the symptoms of diabetes. He was lethargic, had a major craving for sugar and constantly had to urinate. So the couple went to Steve's doctors, and tests were run to find out what was wrong. Did you feel like you were on the track to getting a diagnosis? - Yeah. I was relieved. I was like, 'Yes, we're gonna get this sorted.' - Steve's blood test results showed he had a fasting blood glucose level of 9.6. Anything higher than 7 indicates possible diabetes. - Based on the blood tests that they ran, he was classed as diabetic, and he needed to be medicated immediately, which we thought, 'Cool, we were right.' - But in his doctor's opinion, Steve's numbers weren't that high and he thought with a few lifestyle changes, Steve could go on with without diabetes medication, so he never prescribed any. At the time, doctors noted Steve was morbidly obese, he was 6ft tall and 117kg. What did you think when he said that? - I didn't believe that just losing weight was going to make massive changes. But, you know, he was the doctor, and we... - You trusted his word? - Yeah. Absolutely. And who are we to argue with the doctor? That was pretty much what we were sent away with ` lose a bit of weight, start exercising more. - Did you ever feel like you needed another medical opinion, to go to another doctor's? - I trusted him. That's what it came down to. And you build that trust with a doctor, and I'd been there for at least six years before that. - Although he did lose some weight, his symptoms would come and go. - Then I put that on the back-burner, really, you know, and carried on. - In the subsequent years, did diabetes ever get mentioned again? - The doctor said then that, going forward, he would keep an eye on Steve and intermittently test him, I guess. - But the Peita whanau says this never happened, despite him being seen by numerous GPs at the same practice over the years. - These doctors also had access to the same information, but nobody picked up on anything or was alarmed about what they'd seen. Did they look? Did they read his notes? I don't think so. - Thinking everything was OK, Steve took up a lucrative job as a linesman in Australia. The couple moved over to start a new life. - It was a big, huge step for us ` moving away from the kids and the mokos. But it was exciting, and we thought, you know, it was a good move for us. - But a year later, their Australian dream would come to an abrupt end. After a physical day of work, Steve went home feeling major pain in his left shoulder. - I thought I just worked it too much, but it just wouldn't go away. - It just kept going, and then I decided, you know, instead of going to the doctors, we were going to the hospital. And thank God we did. - They did a blood test. They came out, and they said, 'Oh, you're having a massive heart attack.' They hit me with morphine. Bang, I was out, man. - Steve suffered major damage to his heart. His arteries were clogged and hardened. His blood sugar levels were sky-high at 22, and he was told his heart attack was caused by untreated diabetes. - And they said if you had the medicine back then, you wouldn't have been here. - Trying to explain to the surgeons and the cardiologist there that we did try to get him diagnosed and medicated, we were being looked at, like, you know, 'No, doctors don't do that.' - The couple had to wait a year for Steve to become well enough to travel back to Aotearoa. What kind of medical care did Steve need once he did return home? - Cardiologists, endocrinologists. He had to learn about diabetes. We both did. It's not just diabetes, and it's not just a heart condition. It's everything else that goes with it. - Since his heart attack, Steve's been unable to work, and Jane became his full-time carer. For the last 25 years, he had been the main earner for their blended whanau of five children. - He struggles with the fact that he can't go back to work. You know, he wants to go back to work. That was his life. - He went from earning up to thousands a week to struggling to make ends meet on a benefit. And the Peita whanau were forced to sell their family home of 20 years. What financial toll has it taken? - Oh, just everything, you know? Like, we could afford a house. You know, we could pay our mortgages and that, and then we had to sell up. - You know, our kids were brought up there, our grandkids. My grandson sometimes asks his mother just to drive him past the house. It's been a massive loss, mm. - I could be still working now. It's a hard call, that one. I don't know who to blame there. - Coming up ` Steve turns to ACC for help, but instead he's dragged through a six-year battle for answers. - Ultimately, he's fighting for a fraction of what his true value was to his family for the life that he once had. - Auraki mai ano. Steve Peita and his whanau lost everything when he suffered a major heart attack, and he says it was caused by diabetes, which was never treated by his doctors. So the whanau turned to ACC for answers and support, but found themselves in a six-year-long claims process. Anei te wahanga tuarua o tenei kaupapa. (SUBDUED MUSIC) - After fighting for his life over the last seven years, Steve Peita tries not to look too far ahead. - Every time I go into the doctor's, man, it's like, 'If we have this operation, it's a 30-70, Steve, that you pull through. - In 2014, Steve suffered a major heart attack from untreated diabetes. It's left his heart failing. He's going blind, losing his teeth and suffers uncontrollable seizures. - Now can I have a lolly? - Very shortly. - So he tries to make the most of his time with his whanau. One of his favourite activities is taking his moko to sports. Today, he's at his grandson's league training. - Yeah, nah, I love it. I get out here and watch our mokos train most days that they have training, and most times I go to their games, yeah. Love it. - After suffering his heart attack, Steve turned to ACC for answers and financial support ` not an easy thing to do for such a proud man. - Yeah, don't want to go and ask anyone for anything. Even though sometimes it's hard, I don't want to go ask anyone for anything. - The Peita whanau believed they had a strong case. Their claim centred on the fact Steve's doctors never diagnosed or treated him for diabetes, leading to his heart attack and subsequent health issues. But ACC didn't agree. They declined Steve's claim. For the last six years, it's been Jane who's tried to navigate the ACC system. So you've got a flood of paperwork here. Did you ever think you'd have to fight so hard to get justice for Steve? - Absolutely not, not in my wildest dreams ` not to this extent. - What does that pile there represent for you? - Horror. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, I can't even think of a word to describe just how bad it's been. - Steve filed his claim in 2018. ACC first declined his claim in 2019. The Peita whanau challenged this decision, and ACC arranged a review but still ended up declining Steve's claim in 2020. Burnt out from dealing with ACC, Jane ended up turning to social media for support. - I couldn't do it any more because I didn't feel that I had the knowledge to fight ACC and fight their processes. I looked for somebody on Facebook, actually, and found Daniel. He's an advocate for ACC, and, yeah, without him, we would have given up. - How's it, man? - Hey. How's it? - Daniel Wood has supported a number of people drowning in the ACC system. - A normal person picking up a simple injury ` if you break your thumb, you break your leg or your hand, ACC system is beautiful. There's no real complexities to those things. It's the families that genuinely have a major incident, and it might start off minor but can drastically change. Those are the ones that I worry about. - Once Daniel looked into Steve's records, he realised he had a strong case. - A treatment injury, failure to treat, is all about what the doctor didn't do, but more importantly, what the doctor should have done. - And in this case, what the doctor didn't do is prescribe the medication Steve needed. - How does a person take insulin or diabetes medication if they're never prescribed it? And I'm sitting here, reading paperwork, saying, 'He should have done this. He should have done that.' How does he do it if he's never prescribed it? - And he was disgusted at how ACC was treating Steve. - They called him morbidly obese. He was, yeah, 5kg heavier than he is now. - The narrative was that Steve was to blame, the family were to blame. He didn't have his medication because he didn't go get this test or he didn't take his medication. - But this year, a new clinical report by an endocrinologist would offer a glimmer of hope. The report was damning of Steve's medical care, saying GPs missed a number of chances to diagnose and treat him. Off the back of this report, ACC offered Steve cover for his heart failure, but not the diabetes which caused it. - He had the heart attack because of not being diagnosed or treated for diabetes. - A missed diagnosis with serious consequences for Steve. - No matter how the family looks at it, Steve's going to die. He's going to die earlier than he would have, not by a little bit, but by a lot. - Last year, Steve had open-heart surgery. His latest battle wound carved across his chest. How long can you carry on like this? - That's a flip of a coin. Yeah, I don't know. It's all up to the man upstairs right now. - Both ACC and their medical centre refused to be interviewed for this story. Their medical centre said the doctors involved in Steve's claim no longer work at the practice. But this comes as little comfort to the Peita whanau. But in a dramatic U-turn, a week after the Hui made contact with ACC, it said it would cover the entirety of Steve's claim. So, Jane and Steve, in the last week, you've had some developments with ACC. What are those? - We've been given a verbal apology over the phone and told that he will be getting cover for treatment injury and failure to treat diabetes. - Did you ever think you'd hear those words? - Never. - CHUCKLES: No. No. - Yeah, nah. - How frustrating has this fight been? - It's pretty disgusting, eh,... - Yeah. - ...that we've had to fight this long and hard. - They just drag you over the fire and push you and push you till you cease no more. - It's fight to the death, and some people do die before ACC comes to the party. - Although the couple is now moving forward, they're taking a cautious approach. What are those next steps with ACC now? - The next steps are to hash through what exactly ACC will cover and won't cover and get him taken care of the way he should have been years and years ago. - While Steve won't return to his job on the power lines, at least he has some hope for the future. - There wasn't a dull moment in our lives, and that's for sure. And I'm glad we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. - Na John Boynton tera purongo. Following on from our story, the Peita whanau is still working through with ACC what support Steve will be entitled to. We'll keep you updated. Akuanei ` ka korero ahau ki te minita take hauora, ki a Andrew Little. (CLEARS THROAT) Whether you're a renter, owner, beginner or DIY winner, rolling in cash or tighter than a stuck window sash, needs nails, snazzy towel rails, or a heater to make your outdoors sweeter, we've got the range, low prices and local advices to do whatever your job is. Super nice as. Anyways, I'm a builder, not a poet - not that you'd know it. So come on in and we'll show you how to dough it. (MUTTERS) "Dough it..." (ALL LAUGH) Thank you. Big range, low price, local advice - nice! Hoki mai ki Te Hui. The Ministry of Health has come under fire this week after it was revealed that just 0.2% of 235 million set aside for building mental health and addiction facilities has actually been spent. The money was part of a $1.9 billion mental health package announced in 2019. But three years on, just five extra acute mental health beds have materialised. The news comes just weeks after mental health advocate Mike King returned his New Zealand Order of Merit in frustration over what he describes as a broken health system. Hei matapaki i tenei take, ka whakawhiti atu tatou inaianei ki Poneke, ki te minita take hauora ki a Andrew Little. Tena koe, e te Minita. You want to do a stocktake of the mental health spend so far. - Tena koe. - Wouldn't it be better to just get on spending in the organisations that are already set up? - Yeah, look, I really regret to tell you that much of what you said in your introduction is actually factually incorrect. So let me go through some of those things. $1.9 billion committed in 2019 ` about $800 million of that has gone to departments other than the Ministry of Health, so Corrections, Education, MSD, and they are doing stuff with it. Of the $1.1 billion that Health has got, I can tell you that nearly $750 million of that has either been spent or committed for the full-year period over the period of change that we're doing. About nearly $300 million has actually been... sort of gone out the door up to this week. Of the two $235 million for building or seriously upgrading five acute facilities that are in desperate need of it, actually, a lot more than the 0.2% you talked about has been spent ` about $9 million, actually. The nature of these facilities are they do take a long time, in terms of planning and then construction. Construction for none of them was due to begin until next year. $9 million has been spent on the planning, the consenting and getting things ready. So that stuff is happening. - OK. In terms of what's already making a difference... In terms of what's already making a difference, one thing I can tell you ` 520 extra positions now in place in primary mental health care in addiction. People in GP clinics, community clinics, Kaupapa Maori Health Service, Pacific Health Services, people there actually seeing people with mild to moderate mental health conditions, giving advice and already making a difference. - OK, so let's just put to the side those five new builds on the mental health facilities and deal with people who are actually still waiting. What we do know is that there are people that wait for weeks and weeks and weeks to get some assistance who are suffering from mental health services. So why not actually start pouring some of the money into already set-up and already built facilities, NGOs and the likes, you know, to reach those people who are desperate now? - So we are already doing that. So apart from the five you talked about, there's 11 other projects that we're doing for mental health facilities, which are, you know, much, much smaller kind of upgrades and improvements and additions, and that stuff is happening. One of the big challenges we've got is, of course, the workforce ` the skilled workforce that you need for mental health care and addiction. We put in another $70 million two years ago. But we know that getting a new psychiatrist, getting a new clinical psychologist, getting somebody competent with counselling, with talk therapies, that takes a while. We've put a lot more into those already in the health professions who want to move into mental health care. We've been investing in that already as well. - It doesn't make sense, though, cos what we're told by people like Mike King, who's running, you know, the NGO Gumboot Friday, is that they are getting referrals from DHBs because they can't deal with the numbers that they've got. So you've got organisations like Gumboot Friday who can... who are doing 166 sessions a month. They're cheap ` $140 a session. The wait time's 48 hours, and most of them are seen within six days. It seems crazy that the Ministry have got... hasn't committed some of that money when you've got organisations like that are ready to go. - So two things there. So the stuff that we funded to date, the primary mental health care and addiction stuff, we're seeing roughly 10,000 people a month, doing between 14,000 and 15,000 sessions a month with those people. On other programmes, we know that other programmes, particularly those pitching to young people and children, there are criteria that have to be met. And I know some people call it bureaucratic, but we have a law that says anybody providing professional services to children have to go through a vetting process. That's one of the conditions that has to be met. So we are providing` - Minister, we are in the middle of a health crisis. We are in the middle of a health crisis. We've got people in crisis all the time. We're told that, you know, they're talking to media all around the country. They're writing you letters. You know, are we putting perfection in front of progress here? Is the Ministry of Health being gatekeepers because their procurement is old-fashioned? Do they have to, you know, change it up? - Yeah, I mean, the last time people said that, they said, 'Don't worry about the children.' 'Just let anybody see them.' Of course, then we have a massive other crisis further down the track. We're simply not going to do that. We're gonna do the right thing. - That's really unfair when you're talking about places like Gumboot Friday, because all of their... - Not talking about Gumboot Friday. I'm not talking about Gumboot Friday. I'm talking about the standards that we set for when we provide professional services to children. This has been an issue that we have debated many, many years, and it led to Parliament passing a law a few years ago that said, you know what, children are too vulnerable to allow just anybody to deal with them on a personal basis. We're actually going to have some safeguards in place and some standards. So that's what we do. When it comes to mental health care, part of the programme is also to add to those services. So we are expanding Mana Ake, which is pitched to children. It came out of the mental health crises that arose in Canterbury. We are continuing the Piki pilot, and we'll broaden that to other places around the country as well. We put in extra money into Youthline, and so we are doing a number of things to pitch to young people, but also what we do in the primary mental health care and addiction area, those frontline roles that we've added ` 520 around the country just so far ` is making a difference to people of all ages. - Ka pai tera. The Maori Party is on the receiving end of racial hate speech by white supremacists. The Maori Party has invited you to develop a joint task force that targets anti-Maori campaigns. Will you? Have you responded? - Yeah, I met with Te Pati Maori MPs Debbie and Rawiri, and, in fact, had the director-general of the SIS with me, and we had a good talk about that. I mean, the SIS and the police work pretty close together on this stuff, anyway, so I'm not sure there needs to be necessarily a joint task force. But there does certainly need to be, I think, a greater emphasis and I think accountability about the very extreme, vile, nasty stuff that is now being expressed against Maori ` the threats against marae, the threats against Maori leaders. Debbie and Rawiri were right to call that out, because I think, you know, the response given to the threats against them and Maori was not good, but there is work and there's focus of attention now on making sure that that threat is properly dealt with and the intelligence is gathered on who is behind it. - I feel like every time you come on this programme, I ask you the question about Ngapuhi ` the Ngapuhi settlement. But I'll ask you again. Tell us. Can you give us an update on what's happening there? - Yeah, and you should do, because Ngapuhi is very important, and I've made it important to me. So since the Crown withdrew its recognition of the previous mandate, there's been a lot of korero, I think, between hapu. We've got one hapu grouping that the Crown has said it is happy to recognise. That's Te Whakaaetanga. And they are in the process of getting a mandate from their people to engage with the Crown. There are other hapu groupings that are in conversations with each other, and I'm confident that we'll have more by the end of the year. We're also looking... The Crown is looking very carefully about the way it deals with the treaty redress issues in the context of its broader relationship with Ngapuhi and in Te Tai Tokerau. - Can I just jump in there? Cos I'm a little bit confused. Is Maranga Ake off the table, and are you now looking at six separate treaty settlements? - You talking about Maranga Mai? - Maranga Mai, sorry. - We're not going... Yeah, we're not going down the pure Maranga Mai model, but we said, 'Look, we will deal with groups of hapu who want to come, and we're not going to dictate what the number is, cos it may well be more than six. But what that has led to is` And we are supporting hapu to have the conversations and come together. And there are discussions going on in Whangaroa, in Hokianga, and in other parts of the rohe. So there are those conversations, and I'm confident that we'll have more hapu groupings come forward. But as I say, the other thing is to make sure that the way the Crown engages right across that rohe is actually consistent with what we're trying to achieve here with the redress issues, and that is to restore the relationship the way it once was. We can't ignore He Whakaputanga, so we're looking for opportunities to wananga about that as well. - Tena koe. - We are about the total relationship with Ngapuhi. - Tena koe. E mihi ana ki a koe i whai wa kia haere mai ki runga i Te Hui. Tena koe. Ko Andrew Little tera, minita take hauora. Kua hikina Te Hui e hoa ma, noho ora mai ra. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 - ALL: He mea tautoko na Te Mangai Paho. - The Hui is made with support from New Zealand On Air.