Chinese migrants are struggling to access information about the community outbreak of Covid-19 because it’s not translated into a language they can understand.
Age Concern is calling for more Government communication and support for older migrants, especially those who don't speak English and are unfamiliar with the New Zealand system.
Lisa Guo, 73, lives alone in West Auckland. Her neighbourhood is a “high risk” area, she said, with many locations that positive cases have visited.
But Guo – who gets most of her information from friends on the social media and messaging app WeChat – said she doesn't know details of the locations and times they were visited.
“I'm worried, but I have no way to find out.”
Despite being fully vaccinated, Guo is afraid to go out for errands, and expects her stock of food and medicine to last her another 20 days.
If she gets sick, she will press her St John medical alarm for an ambulance, due to the scarcity of Mandarin-speaking staff at her GP’s office in New Lynn, she said.
Albany resident Yuping Chi, 78, and her husband, 85, also feel they lack information on the locations of interest.
“English is the main problem. We don't know which places are dangerous,” Chi said.
She has been relying on WeChat and church friends for information, and while she has heard about major locations of interest, such as the nearby Pak’nSave, on New Zealand Chinese TV, she thought those reports lacked detail.
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“I think we need to be self-reliant and independent, but in these times people like us need help,” she said.
“I hope the government can give more information in Chinese, like where have the cases been [and] which buses they were on.”
Age Concern’s chief executive Kevin Lamb said while elderly people nationwide are experiencing problems accessing daily necessities and information during lockdown, the situation is exacerbated for elderly migrants, who have language barriers and lack knowledge of what support is available.
Lamb said Age Concern’s Asian services team had set up a WeChat group to support elderly Chinese people through the lockdown, and was matching volunteers to elderly people who need groceries and medicines delivered.
There are only four staff members on the Asian services team, supporting more than 1500 elderly Chinese people with welfare calls and contactless deliveries.
Lamb said the government needed to urgently consider other platforms to reach elderly Chinese people during the lockdown, “[other] than what Pākehā, Māori and Pasifika are used to”, including those commonly used among the Chinese population, like WeChat.
He said the situation was also a reminder of the need for a longer-term strategy to support elderly migrants.
“It’s not simply a question of when we have an emergency situation to suddenly start to throw money at the problem,” he said.
“We need proper strategic conversations.”
The Ministry of Health and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Covid-19 Group have been approached for comment.
Here is the thing; and it is not just "Chinese elders" it is all groups... if you come to a country to live, learn the language. New Zealand has 3 official languages, "English", "Te Reo Maori", and "NZ Sign Language"... learn any one of those. Learn and comprehend it. Don't just learn the spoken word but also the written word. I don't care where you are from. If you are a Kiwi going to live in Japan you learn how to read and speak Japanese. It is that simple.
We can not be expected to translate to every known language on the planet. How many languages do you expect something to be translated in. Why haven't you (however long you have been here) attempted to learn to read in English or Te Reo.
It actually starts to piss me off when I hear stories like this. You come here and you stick to your own group don't learn the NZ culture or one of 3 NZ official languages and complain. Why did you come here in the first place then?
I am not saying forget about your own culture in any way or form, but you have to embrace NZ culture as well and part of that is to learn to communicate, not just in the spoken word but also in the written word.
