Creating

communityconnectionsintheaftermathofCyclone Gabrielle

When Cyclone Gabrielle devastated Hawke’s Bay, Auckland’s Marieann Mohi knew shehadtogoandhelpherwhānau, hermaraeandthewidercommunity.

Within a week, she was on the ground, working as a registered nurse at Wairoa Hospital and helping to connect people to the servicesthey needed in her downtime.

“Of course, I’d seen the TV pictures, soI was expecting to see the devastation, but I wasn’t prepared for the heat and the humidityatropicalcycloneleavesbehind,andthestenchofmudandrottingvegetationwas awful,” says Marieann. “The dust from the silt was everywhere, all the time, and there were clouds of sandflies.

“Although it had been a week since Gabrielle had hit, the impact was still very fresh and raw andeverywherewasinchaos. Peopleweredoingtheirbestforeachotherbutallthesystems we take for granted – roads, power, water, communications – were gone.”

While Marieann (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Maniapoto) had grown up in Hastings, she had headed to Auckland as a young single mother looking for more than the factory and seasonal work open to her at home.

“I had thought I’d like to be a midwife but then a scholarship to help bring more Māori into nursing sort of fell into my lap and away I went,” she says.

She worked in various roles for the then Auckland DHB before ending up in the operating theatre at Starship Hospital. Then an opportunity came up to join Kaiarahi Nahi, a project to help tackle the inequities Māori experience in the health system, which led to a role in the Performance team, working to help shape the way the system responds to Māori health needs.

Givenher kaupapa,itwas unsurprisingthat when Marieann wasn’t working ashiftatWairoa, she was out in the community, providing a connection between people and healthcare services by advising where they needed to go to get help, helping to carry out wellness checks, doing the dishes and chatting with the elderly on the local marae.

“I just went where there was a need, either to help people navigate the health services available to them, to do the jobs that needed doing or just to help provide a sense of peace and calm, a space where people didn’t have to worry for while,” she says.

She also found that the people she met gave her maanaki too, lifting her up after long hours dealing with a busy ward where staff shortages and maintenance issues compounded the stress levels of working in a disaster zone.

“One of the most amazing things that happened was the little picture house in Wairoa opening up to show Te Matatini, the huge kapa haka event, for everyone.

“It enabled the local community to come together to see their team perform and be part of that amazing celebration of te ao Māori. The feeling in that place was something I will never forget and feel privileged to have been part of.

“I was also able to reach out to people and open some doors for them because I was with whānautheyknewandtrusted,inaspacewheretheywerecomfortable.Itwasawaytogive back for the welcoming me into that experience.”

MarieannspenttwoweeksinWairoabeforereturningtoAucklandbuthasjustbeendeployed once again.

She did manage to find time to connect with her whānau in Hastings and visit the urupā at Omahu Marae, which was featured heavily in the press for the damaged it sustained from flooding, to make sure her father and other whānau buried there were ok.

“It’s going to take somuch time and effort for the Hawke’s Bay region to just get back its feet again, let alone actually begin to thrive again,” Marieann warns.

“It has been wonderful to see the support coming from across Te Whatu Ora to help make that happen. I know that everyone there is so grateful. It helps them to know they are not alone in this, that people are there for them for the long-haul.”