A volunteer “Blue-Sky” innovation team was convened to address the findings. The diverse group brought together experience in public health, te ao Māori, nursing and health management.
Organisers said the group’s goal was to look beyond existing system structures and reimagine how public healthcare could be delivered.
The colourful “vanbulance” in which Art Nahill and Glenn Colquhoun drove from Te Hāpua to Wellington last year.
Community insights, case studies from the hīkoi, and frameworks for a reimagined health system have been compiled in a forthcoming book, Rethinking Health: Lessons from the Hīkoi 4 Health.
Colquhoun, who has worked in Northland for many years, said the book explained why the pair protested about the state of the New Zealand health system.
“It is about the feedback we got from New Zealanders when we did. Above all else, it is about hope. And about how it is possible to reimagine our health system and have it work more effectively for everyone in our country.”
The book includes peer review by a panel of “tyre-kickers”: public health expert Professor Sir Collin Tukuitonga, health economist Ganesh Nana, Malcolm Mulholland from Patient Voice Aotearoa, and former MP Louisa Wall, now a spokeswoman for Kaitiaki Hauora.
The book has gone to press and is expected to be available in late August or early September, when the vision will be revealed. A documentary about the hīkoi, produced by Ōriwa Hakaraia, is in its final editing stages.
General hospital physician Art Nahill.
Nahill and Colquhoun are preparing to get back behind the wheel of their signature “vanbulance” for the final phase of the kaupapa. Starting in mid to late September, the team will revisit the communities that hosted them and shared their stories, delivering the book and its recommendations in person.
They plan to end their journey in Wellington, offering copies of the book and their vision for a new healthcare system to MPs.