Shane Te Pou – This Government doesn’t care about care givers!
I genuinely can’t think of a sector of our workforce that’s going to matter more over the next 20 years than caregiving.
And when you hit 60, you stop thinking about this as some abstract workforce or policy issue. You start thinking about it as a very real part of how your own life is probably going to unfold — and how it’s going to unfold for a lot of us.
I’ve had plenty to do with caregivers over the years, through work and through the people I’ve crossed paths with. But over the last four or five years, it’s got a lot more personal — whānau members becoming seriously unwell, some of them in the final stages of their lives. That’s when you really understand what caregivers are worth.
They don’t just provide care. They bring dignity with them.
They support people at their most vulnerable while trying to hold their own lives together at the same time. And far too often they’re poorly paid, sitting on the margins of our economy — sometimes even expected to find and pay for their own transport and insurance just to get to the people they’re caring for.
Let that sink in
And if you think it’s hard finding a well-trained, experienced caregiver in the cities, try finding one in small-town New Zealand. The challenge only gets bigger.
Yet the moment you or someone you love gets seriously ill, these are suddenly the most important people in the room.
I’m an HR person. I’m a business person. And when you’re in real need, when you’re at the most vulnerable point in your life, I’m the last person you need. You need the caregiver.
And here’s the thing about who that caregiver usually is: mainly women, Māori, Pacific, and a growing number of new immigrants. The people carrying the heaviest, most intimate work in our society are, more often than not, the same people our economy has always paid the least and valued the least.
Case in point: more than 1200 support workers across Auckland are now facing the loss of their jobs, after Health NZ decided not to renew home and community support contracts with three long-standing non-profit providers — Visionwest, Lifewise, and Presbyterian Support Northern. Between them, these organisations support around 4,500 Kaumatua and disabled people. 4,500 people again think about that that’s connections that’s getting to know the person who is unwell or disabled. That’s getting to know their families that’s getting to know their real needs.
Nobody yet knows who’s picking up those contracts. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear it’ll be an outfit backed by private equity — and we’ve all seen that playbook before, whether it’s early childhood education or aged care: cut costs, squeeze pay and conditions, boost the margin, cause a mess, then move on to the next deal .
Caregiving , you need someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone with training, experience, patience, and humanity. Someone who can walk you or your loved one through some of the hardest, most vulnerable moments you’ll ever face.
I’m weeping real tears as I write this. I think about the fantastic caregiver who supported our family through the toughest time of our lives — a sick mother, and then, sadly, a very sick and vulnerable sister.
So why on earth do we keep undervaluing them?
Come on, New Zealand. We can be better than this.
Actually — let’s be bloody selfish about it. Let’s build a well-paid, well-trained, properly supported caregiving workforce in our cities, our towns, and our rural communities. Not just because it’s the right thing to do for caregivers, but because it’s about protecting ourselves and the people we love.
One day, very likely, you’re going to need them. And when that day comes, you’ll want the very best people standing there.
And let me put this out there — if you’re really wealthy, it’s not your kids who are going to look after you. When you’re seriously sick, they’ll be out spending your money or running your business. It’s more likely to be a caregiver — the very people you dismissed as unimportant back when you were earning big money, doing big business, and your focus was on profit
Let’s do what’s right by caregivers
Not just for someone else’s family.
For yours.
Shane Te Pou is a political commentator and Māori broadcaster. It is TDBs privilege to platform his political analysis for the Election.
I’ve worked in this industry overseas and had experience of seeing them care for my elderly mother. Carers become a part of the extended family and are a very important part of it when we need them. To upend what is in place and works (though the carers need to be better paid) is cruel as elderly people fear change – the upset this will cause is real. I read that it’s going to be rolled out across the country, not just the 3 care facilities so far. It looks like a soulless corporate model is planned.
” This Government doesn’t care about care givers! ”
No political party in the current parliament cares enough to reform and support not only caregivers but many others in our working communities. Our wealthy winner takes all free market economy makes sure they don’t and no one is challenging the status quo because all of the current political parties have either sold out to monied interests who dictate our parliaments legislation or the MP’s themselves who have been bought or prosper from the current economic system while soliciting votes in the current campaign by lying that somehow ” better starts here ”
Shane I work with our mentally unwell whanau who quite simply have been discarded and live lives of serious destitution that if was exposed in a non partisan media would shock many New Zealanders ..the ones left that actually have a conscience.
INMHO the coming general election will be the same farce it is every three years and I can guarantee that supporting care givers WILL not be a priority policy for any of the corporate political representatives asking for your vote.
Sadly our health and community workers are another part of our expendable workforce who have no one representing them that understand and value the mahi and dedication many deliver to our most vulnerable citizens every day.
Our political system and the parties that operate within it are compromised and corrupt. Its that simple.
If we really want actual change for many of our people then a new movement dedicated to representing and implementing policies that WILL actually deliver for our care givers and so many others is the only way we will get change.
New York voters responded to the call and acted with their votes.
When the current regime is re elected and propped up by TOP after November 7th to continue its attack agenda against many in our communities will the demand for real political change be demanded.