Pacific Covid Stories: One Family's Journey
The Epati Family: On fighting Covid, receiving care in a crisis and their Tautua approach against the health system.
On a sunny Mid-August Sunday, many families across Auckland gathered in churches for their weekly celebration of faith and family. But as songs of praise and prayers of gratitude poured from the aisles, the clouds rolled in and the weather began to shift, signalling change in season and life to come. For two days a Covid storm brewed, before all of New Zealand was jolted into a Level 4 lockdown on the 17th of August.
The Epati Aiga from Ranui’s Samoan Assembly Of God were amongst the faithful, attending a multi-church group service on the 15th of August. Unknowingly, members of the congregation carried the Delta variant and it spread like fire.
The Epati Aiga were a part of this cluster, and had no idea of the uncertainty, fear and illness they were going to endure in the days that followed.
Unwelcome, Delta arrived on their doorsteps and affected their entire aiga. Across 4 households, 12 members of the Epati Aiga tested positive for COVID19: 4 elderly, 7 adults and 1 child, with ultimately 3 people going into hospital including a pregnant woman.
Janice Kalika Epati was shocked when she discovered she was positive with COVID19 - while pregnant.
“My partner and I looked at each other and were like this is it! What do we do? Where do we go from here?”
She found herself struggling to breathe, needing an inhaler from her Doctor despite never using one before. Health risks for her unborn baby were unlikely but her Doctor feared Janice would catch pneumonia. Once she understood the steps she needed to take, Janice was referred to the hospital where she spent 3 days. But not before a humiliating experience where she was expected to put on her PPE gear in the carpark “with everyone watching”.
COVID19 Health Support, A Consistent Failure
Elderly members of the family were severely impacted, with one elder having to be admitted to hospital twice during lockdown. This had an overwhelming effect on the rest of the family, who witnessed the frightening moments from the beginning of the sickness where the mental state of their loved ones were panicky and worried.
After finally receiving the dreadful news of their elders testing positive, there was significant confusion over when their parents were to be picked up safely for MIQ; their mother was picked up 4 days after turning positive. The Epati family tried their best to manage the situation from their separate bubbles. They say some of the distressing issues they faced was having no Samoan translators at the hospital for their father, and almost having their parents separated by being admitted to two different hospitals.
Family member Christina was responsible for some of the ongoing communication with services and health centres, she shares how her father underwent tumultuous changes, moving from place to place.
“Dad came out of MIQ but still wasn’t well enough. He was having trouble breathing, he was experiencing high fever, the shakes. We then had to ring the GP who said he needed to go get tested again … We physically couldn’t be there in the hospital for him. Our expectation is that it could be easily sorted but he never got an interpreter ... We don’t have medical backgrounds but thanks to people we can turn to through our connections, we are able to ask questions, understand ourselves before translating it simply for our parents.”
Caring for his covid-stricken mother and struggling with Covid himself, Tali - one of the youngest members of the family - recognized the disconnect between the government information being shared and his family trying to decipher it. He says “communication was the downfall” on the Ministry of Health’s end. From having to wait 4 days to be transferred to MIQ whilst still being in the same household as his 74-year-old mother, to the limited and unengaging resources that were available at the time in understanding what was going on.
“The thing I was finding hard was there was so much information on one page. It’s hard to figure out. You just want the specific information.”
Tali went on to create a Samoan cartoon, a helpful resource to inform Samoan communities what to expect from Covid. With help from other family members, they made the video to help the many elderly people who had tested positive to understand the Covid process.
“Language barriers for our elders who are often traumatised by a positive test was a big motivation for me to start asking around platforms I felt comfortable with, such as Fresh. I found there were not many resources in our own language. In some cases, there were - but we are talking about videos that were 17 minutes long, didn’t cut to the chase, literally a person standing in front of a camera with their radio voice on. To me, they were not engaging at all. Our people want to hear something is real.”
The video was put together to educate our Samoan community, and Tali believes this was achieved. It answers key questions within 1-2 minutes, questions that other aiga members had asked themselves throughout their Covid experience.
Being proactive against Covid, the Samoan way
In the spirit of resilience and tautua, members of the family came together to form plans, a week after the announcement.
“From the 17th through to the following week, no one was really moving, yet everyone was at the service ... Our parents were a little bit blase, they had information from their leaders but it wasn’t clear. Then they started to feel unwell. They started to get worried about being unwell and so they went and got their tests done. There was that whole anxiety while waiting for the test results to come through.”
It was soon realised how easy it could be for loved ones to be left behind or further exposed to the threat of COVID19. Understanding the massive task of protecting their bloodline, the family came up with their own processes that helped them to understand and be inclusive of different family needs. With the information from the Public Health system proving to be frustrating and confusing, tracking and testing started from scratch within the Epati family. Detailed maps and data tracking helped the family to visualize what was happening to their family, even going as far to include close contacts, who had been tested, who were awaiting results, who had multiple tests and who was yet to be tested. Updated regularly, the Epati family were able to really piece together how COVID19 unfolded within their cluster.
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Going Forward: Epati Family Share Their Advice For Others
The Epati Family have found that leaning on strong structures that are inherent to their Fa’asamoa have been really significant on their journey in pushing back against COVID19. They have learnt a lot about their family unity and how rewarding for the spirit it is to know they can rely on each other - no matter what.
Not all families are as cohesive as the Epati’s - highlighting a need for more Pacific representatives on all levels of the Health system, to increase the understanding of Pacific families and rebuild their trust with the community. After all they’ve endured, the family hope Aotearoa can learn from their story.
“We have a common purpose to get together and contribute… It doesn’t matter how big or small, everyone has their strengths and skills in making things work for our Aiga”. Dr Vaaiga Autagavaia
Their advice is share the load; while some do the heavy lifting by driving to drop off food parcels, others can help with data collecting for their family tracking, while providing a solid listening ear. Emotional offloading and physical presence included, all contributions are valuable!
Using a combination of skills from the “palagi world” and Fa’asamoa, the Epati Family highlight how important it is for Pacific communities to continue to be prepared and to make family systems work in our current environment. Going “back to what we know and started from” has proven to be a working success against a government system giving “us every reason to believe we can’t make it”. The family is clear: Pacific families have the solutions! Pacific people deserve a level of support and have the ability to seek answers themselves.
“If you’re sick, you are sick. Open up and speak up. You don’t have to go through it all, alone.”
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“E fofō e le alamea le alamea" Translation: The crown of thorns heals itself
The Epati aiga would like to thank the following people for their help through this traumatic time:
- Fepulea'i Margie Apa (Counties Manukau DHB)
- Gerardine Clifford-Lidston (MOH)
- Pauline Fuimaono Sanders (Clinical Nurse Director)
- Seumanu Simon Matafai (Samoan Translator)
- Cherry Elisaia (Southseas mobile unit nurse)
- Peisi Ah Chong (Fanau Ola Nurse Case Manager/ Acting Nurse Lead)
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Public Interest Journalism funded by NZ On Air