Etu Pasifika staff hosted two sites on “Super Saturday”, one at Te Aratai College, formerly known as Linwood College and the other at Ashburton College, located about an hour away from Christchurch’s centre city serving the rural district communities. 

Previously in other vaccination drives run by Etu Pasifika Christchurch, Covid-19 Pfizervaccines were the sole focus, however this drive had a wider offering with three different vaccines: the Covid-19 Pfizer, the flu jab, and the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella). Etu Pasifika staff felt that having all three vaccines available to the community and for families including paediatric recipients was important with the international borders opening up, In particular, our Pacific Islands. 

A total of 147 people got vaccinated at Te Aratai college and 54 people at Ashburton College. 

One of the successes of the event across both sites was the number of families that came through. Dr Monica Nua-George, the clinical director at Etu Pasifika Christchurch said that the largest family they had in for full vaccinations had a total of eight people. 

One of the families at Te Aratai college who presented not long after the doors had opened for service was very pleased at how accessible the Super Saturday vaccine event was for theirwhole family. 

“Today we are getting vaccinated together as a family to keep us all safe and healthy. Health is very important to us, and the Etu Pasifika staff here have made it so easy for us to do it all together”, says Mr Jose Bay, who brought along his family to the “Super Saturday” event. 

Enelata Iolama was a mother who came with her four children to the Ashburton site and was grateful that the vaccines were easily accessible as she like many has an eye to return to the Pacific Islands. 

“We all decided to get the flu jab together because it protects our whole family, especially our young ones. With the borders opening the priority of our own health has become more urgent”.

#pmaunite   #pmafamily

Date: Friday 12 August 2022