Combined Cancer Screening A Huge Success For Wai Health

Wai Health, the clinical arm at Te Whānau o Waipareira, are celebrating the success of their flagship Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora (M2MO) Programme, a combined breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening service documented in an Evaluation Report out today.

M2MO was a one-year pilot programme run by Wai Health and due to its positive outcomes and funding from Health NZ it will continue as a service for another year.

Waipareira Clinical Governance Director, Ngaire Harris knows how important the screening process is to keep whānau safe.

“This is the first time breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening was combined. Cervical cancer self-testing is the biggest game changer for women’s health in our lifetime and we were fortunate to get that on the implementation stage. Our objective is to improve the rates of cervical, breast and bowel screening by engaging with whānau and identifying those overdue for screening. It’s mana motuhake – we each have our own mana and we should determine our own health”.

The M2MO Programme Evaluation Report outlines the processes and results including 308 registered whānau, along with 50 cervical screenings and 79 breast screenings. Interviews were also conducted with some participants sharing their stories and experiences.

Wai Health Lead Nurse for M2MO Marewa Tibble credits their considered approach for making all the difference.

“The team were focused and they overcame barriers whānau experience with cancer screening like accessing services and mistrust of the mainstream health system. This is not an easy path for many people however M2MO simplified it with aroha and manaakitanga. I have this theory that we had a different approach with our rangatahi, our social media messaging and our overall engagement and they were all very successful. The “how” for us is our kauhau ora, how we conduct ourselves and we will never change that. Don’t let the system sort out your health problems, we can give you the tools and support”.

Wai Clinic 021 197 2781 for direct contact with a tele-health Nurse.