Letitia’s Message

Kia ora koutou,

It has been a challenging start to 2023 for many of our respiratory community in the North Island due to the devastating effects of Cyclones Gabrielle and Hale. Dealing with a respiratory condition in emergency situations is especially stressful and can certainly be made worse when managing the clean-up phase. Our hearts go out to all those affected by these events.

When living through challenging times, it is easy to forget to take care of yourself. Please remember to look after respiratory health. Keep taking your regular medications, and if you can access your asthma action plans, please follow these. Take extra precautions during the clean-up phase when dealing with mould and contaminated silt. We have some useful tips on removing mould on page 11.

A bright spot over the last two months, was the Foundation’s Respiratory Achievers’ Awards held in late February. The awards are always a highlight for our team as we get to celebrate the achievements of outstanding individuals who have had to work harder than most to achieve their goals. We will be sharing our winners’ stories in the next few issues of this magazine, you can read the first of these on page 8.

We were incredibly lucky to receive support from our Friends of the Foundation Platinum Sponsor G.J. Gardner Homes which allowed us to host the 2023 Awards. I would encourage you to check out photos from this event on page 9.

I was also pleased at the start of this year to see new proposals from the Government aiming to tighten up vaping rules. This is something that the Foundation has been strongly advocating for and we welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback.

While we support the Government’s suggestions: restricting flavour names of vaping products; extending safety requirements for disposable vaping products and restricting where specialist vape stores can be located, we think the rules need to go much further to protect the lung health of our young people.

Youth vaping continues at incredibly high levels, particularly among rangatahi. The last Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Year 10 Survey found that 40% of Māori girls are vaping regularly. In our submission to Government, we have asked for further restrictions including; banning disposal vape products, reducing the maximum nicotine levels in all vapes to 20 mg/ml, and significantly reducing the current numbers of specialist vape retailers.

The team was pleased to welcome an intern, Katie Lowles, to the Foundation’s office for the first three months of this year. Katie is a PhD student at the University of Manchester working in immunology. She is helping us to update some of our asthma and COPD resources as part of her work experience, and we look forward to sharing some of her work later in the year.

Intern Katie Lowles has been writing new resources for the Foundation.

Finally, with the colder seasons approaching it is time to think about taking action to protect your respiratory health. A useful concept we all learnt from COVID-19, is the idea of ‘flattening the curve’, or taking preventative measures to stop overwhelming our busy health system. It’s all commonsense stuff: staying at home when you are unwell, wearing masks on public transport or in crowded public spaces and being vigilant about handwashing. It is also important to keep up to date with your immunisations against the flu and COVID-19. People with respiratory conditions are prioritised for the flu vaccine, and those eligible can receive the vaccine for free. Flu vaccines will be available from 1 April 2023.

I hope you enjoy this issue of Better Breathing. We welcome your feedback on the magazine, or on any other aspect of our work, please feel to get in touch (our details are on the facing page),

Noho ora mai

Letitia Harding Chief Executive