A New Zealand Nurses Organisation petition launched at the recent Indigenous Nurses Conference was just a few hundred signatures short of it target five days later.
The petition calls for the government to fully fund smoking cessation and advocacy services – especially those provided by Māori and Pasifika organisations – after the government cut funding to anti-smoking advocacy services including Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa.
“It doesn’t make any sense that on the one hand the Government supports the goal of Smokefree Aotearoa 2025, but on the other is pulling funding out of Smokefree advocacy services," said NZNO kaiwhakahaere, Kerri Nuku in launching the petition in early August. "Many Māori and iwi providers who are helping their own people quit smoking have also had their funding slashed.”
The New Zealand Herald reported in late June that the Smokefree Coalition, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa and Pacific anti-smoking agency Tala Pasifika all lost their funding from July 1 after the Ministry of Health awarded a single national anti-smoking advocacy contract to West Auckland-based Māori health agency Hapai Te Hauora. The Ministry told the Herald that the funding cut from advocacy was redirected into "frontline cessation services" and the total funding on advocacy and training increased slightly to $2.37 million out of a total tobacco control budget, including Quitline, of $61 million.
Nuku said the petition calls on the Ministers of Health and Finance "to do the right thing" if they wanted to see a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025 and fully fund services including holistic, culturally appropriate and community-based quitting services. On August 10 the online petition had received more than 1400 signatures towards to its 2000 signature goal.
The petition can be viewed at: http://www.together.org.nz/smokefree
Smokefree Nurses continue after funding loss
Meanwhile Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa director Dr Grace Wong said the 'realignment' of the national tobacco control programme meant its eight years of funding from the Ministry of Health ended on June 30.
She said it had been low level funding, $60,000 a year, but it had been very grateful to have received government funding "for all of those years" as she was only aware of two other governments – Thailand and Sweden – that had funded nursing smokefree advocacy work.
Wong said the support of the Ministry contract had allowed Smokefree Nurses to employ a co-ordinator three days a week and to help facilitate its passionate members smokefree advocacy action work - particularly with Māori, Pacific and primary health care nurses, and also working with nursing schools.
She said over the years this had resulted in interest in its work building from 'very low interest' at conferences it attended to 'very high' interest in recent years. The ministry funding had also given it a platform to seek extra funding grants for projects like the "What Smokers Really Want" videos and the Cow Pat 'scratch and win' card research project which recently ended with the results currently being analysed. It also facilitated Smokefree Nurses Pacific leader Loma-Linda Tasi winning international funding to travel to Tonga last year to train health professionals about how to deliver brief smoking cessation interventions in readiness for Tonga's Quitline service being launched this year.
Wong said Smokefree Nurses was continuing despite the funding loss with the much appreciated support of AUT (where it is based), Whitireia and MIT. "Smokefree Nurses existed as a voluntary organisation before the Ministry contract so we will always be there to support and advise nurses and are still very involved in the sector including working with Hapai (which won the advocacy contract), making submissions and involved in research."
She said it had enough funding remaining to fund its coordinator one day a week until the end of the year. And was still delivering on its remaining promises including stalls at several upcoming conferences.
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