Caption: The Manu Ora team are celebrating three years since their doors opened to whānau (patients).
Now this is a milestone moment – wow! We are SO grateful to be celebrating 3 years of serving our whānau and community here at Manu Ora! Yes, 3 years ago we opened the doors of our where.
We just wanted to say a huge, HUGE, thank you to everyone who has supported us in our kaupapa to support whānau on their hauora journey and enhance health outcomes here in Wairau. It’s a true team and community effort – and “iti nei iti nei ka taea” (with small consistent steps we will get there)!
Here is a bit more of a story about how we’ve come to this point in our journey…
Three years ago, Dr Sara and Dr Rachel ‘leapt into’ the kaupapa of Manu Ora “wanting to do something for people who really needed” quality healthcare. Three years – and three awards later – we’re taking a moment to reflect how far we have come.
Manu Ora is a partnership between Te Piki Oranga (a Māori wellness provider) and Nuku Health. The partnership aims to change the delivery of primary healthcare in Wairau, with a focus on improving health equity, and a fulfilling workplace for kaimahi (employees).
“What became really evident early on in the planning process was it wasn’t a sustainable business model in the traditional sense of general practice, meaning it was always going to lose money,” says Dr Sara. But the traditional GP practice model is barely faring much better. The Health and Disability System Review Panel (2020) recommended a deliberate move away from the current “capitation” funding model within five years. A 2023 Te Whatu Ora report added “findings that general practice is significantly underfunded”.
“That’s when we decided to go down the charitable route and explore how to make this work and provide holistic care under the Te Ao Māori model, which really focused on Māori health equity and removing any barriers that Māori have had to quality healthcare in the past.”
“Be that trauma from previous experiences, or not being able to establish quality relationships with their healthcare team because they don’t have enough time in the practice to get to know each other, or through cost.”
Dr Rachel says Manu Ora are mandated to go the ‘extra mile’ for the wider community. She explains 72% of our funding came from not central government but from contracts with Te Aka Whai Ora (Māori Health Authority) and funders like the Rātā Foundation.
“They recognise the importance and see the value of our kaupapa,” Dr Sara says. “If you get it right for Māori, you get it right for everyone.”
Dr Rachel says the kaupapa behind Manu Ora also came about from observing the growing number of ‘burnt out’ clinicians. “The burnout or distress was about working in a health model that didn’t allow you to do what was needed for that patient”. Manu Ora works through a Te Ao Māori worldview, encompassing a holistic understanding of health.
“It allows us to give more time for patients to understand where they come from, what their challenges or vulnerabilities are. Why they present to us, like they do,” she says. “We’ve moulded our service in response to need. For example, when we discovered our whānau were kai-insecure, we started the Pātaka Kai (foodbank). We’ve built on having close collaborations within our community and listening to their needs.”
“The ability to engage in the Te Ao Māori model has increased massively because of every single kaimahi’s personal commitment to do so. To learn, grow, and enhance the tikanga and open themselves up to patients,” says Dr Sara.
The team were absolutely delighted to have their mahi recognised in not one, but three awards at the Marlborough ‘Business Excellence Awards’ in 2023. The team were “incredibly honoured” to receive the coveted Supreme Business Award, the Community Impact Award and the Emerging Business Award.
But the good news for the team doesn’t stop there. Dr Sara has also just heard she’s been awarded a scholarship. This award from the SWR Scholarship Fund will enable her to attend the ‘Company Directors’ Course’, the benchmark for directors and senior leaders reporting to boards in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr Sara has 20 years’ experience in governance, starting from her time as a medical student at the University of Otago and continuing with various boards in Marlborough.
“It’s such an honour to receive this scholarship. As someone who lives and breathes not-for-profit in my mahi, the recognition of the importance of excellent governance in this space is amazing.” Dr Sara had previously considered undertaking the course but had not been able to justify the expense given the “not-for-profit organisations I serve”.
Good things go in threes. “It’ll be exciting to see where the next three years can take us!”.
