Social connectedness is “totally paramount” to improve the health and wellbeing of our Maori whanau - that's the take away message from the first ever marae-based pulmonary rehab course.

The courses, run by Canterbury Clinical Network’s Community Respiratory Service, usually operate in community venues with a set programme of health education and exercise over the course of eight weeks.

But a chance encounter between Respiratory Nurse Louise Weatherall and Rehua Marae nurse, Megan Karena, highlighted an opportunity for the Integrated Respiratory Team to improve Maori engagement and uptake in the course by delivering it onsite at the Christchurch-based marae.

“Working in partnership with Megan was key to the success of the course, because she could advise the best way to adapt our approach and delivery to make it much more relevant and appropriate,” said Louise.

“We’d ordinarily carry out one-to-one assessments but in order to build trust with the group we did the initial assessments together.

“We had to be much more responsive to the environment and culture of the marae. The space we used was shared with the weavers and sometimes they would join the sessions, or sometimes they would sit and listen.

“The group always had 13 attendees, but they weren’t necessarily the 13 we started with!”

The participants responded so well in fact, that at the close of the course a regular volunteer for the rehab programme, Mac, agreed to lead the exercise sessions on a weekly basis.

“People of all backgrounds are welcome at the marae, many don’t have local family because they have come from the North Island. On top of that, some are high-needs individuals and not all of them have great health literacy,” Louise said.

“But as the weeks went on the group responded really well – they really enjoyed it and are healthier as a result.”

Megan believes that being located within a community is the key to building the productive relationships that contribute to equitable health outcomes.

“Feeling comfortable and confident is much easier in a familiar environment, surrounded by friends. Our experience reinforced the importance of social connectedness to the health and wellbeing of our Maori community.”

“One lady, Suzi, had come for assessment through our ‘mainstream’ rehab programme twice, but never came back.

“But when she arrived at the marae to take part in the course she was like a different person! She told us that in the other programmes she hadn’t felt comfortable, but in the marae she belonged. Her aim was to go to Australia to visit whanau there, and she has been able to achieve that.”

The Community Respiratory Service is now looking at adapting its mainstream course with a view to making it more inclusive, by placing more focus on people sharing their stories.

Find out more about the work of Rehua Marae via the website.