At 71 years old, Barbara Nampitjinpa is the perfect candidate to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the next phase of the rollout.
Ms Nampitjinpa, who uses an oxygen tank to help herself breathe, is not only getting the jab for her own health, but to encourage other people in remote communities to do the same.
Phase 1b of the vaccine rollout, which begins on 22 March, will focus on vaccinating Indigenous Australians aged 55 and over, people over 70, and those who are immunocompromised, as well as some emergency services personnel including the remainder of the health workforce not included in Phase 1a.
Working with members of Purple House, an Indigenous-owned and run remote dialysis clinic in Alice Springs, Ms Nampitjinpa has been helping to translate information about the vaccine into an animation spoken in Pintupi-Luritja, a dialect heard predominantly around the central desert region.
Speaking in Pintupi-Luritja, Ms Nampitjimpa said the message was important to keep her community safe from the disease.
“I came to Purple House to talk about the virus,” she told SBS News.
“This virus came from overseas last year to Australia. We had to listen [because] we were in a battle with the virus.
“We need to get the needle. We, the people, in all the communities. They need to listen. [Especially] the sick people. They’re getting scared that they might die.”
Purple House started out as a health service for patients from remote locations seeking treatment for end-stage renal disease, who had been forced to travel thousands of kilometres to Alice Springs and Darwin to access health services.
The service now runs 18 clinics in locations across the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia.
Purple House CEO Sarah Brown said that while the main goal of the organisation is to provide care to patients in need of dialysis, it has taken on a larger role in the community.
Barbara Nampitjinpa wants people in remote communities to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Source: SBS News/Aneeta Bhole
“It’s also a place for people to feel safe, socialise and talk to people they trust,” she told SBS News.
“It’s all come from the patients and their families. They’re our bosses, they decide the priorities.
“It’s a really exciting and culturally-appropriate way to work.”
Ms Brown said the service came up with the idea for the vaccine animation when the pandemic first hit, as an opportunity to get the information out in an easy and digestible way.
Purple House has also developed an app, Wangka Kutju, to translate Pintupi-Luritja to English to help communications between patients and staff.
Purple House staff travel to remote communities to help people who would otherwise have to travel thousands of kilometres for health services. Source: SBS News/Aneeta Bhole
Ms Brown said it has been important to get the message out to the community using resources from the government, as the service's messaging is more likely to be trusted.
“People are really looking for messages they can trust and a government announcement about something is not necessarily going to cut it,” she said.
“The kind of stories we were hearing are similar to those across the country, you know, ‘It’s been too quick’, ‘Why is there all this talk about Aboriginal people - are they testing it on us?’
“So [the animation] helps people to understand that there are millions of people across the world that have already had it.”
A in February led to the removal of important health information from trusted organisations across the country.
Patients at Purple House are being encouraged to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Source: SBS News/Aneeta Bhole
While the ban has been lifted, Indigenous health organisations say they are prioritising diversifying where the information is being distributed.
John Patterson, CEO at Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT, said his organisation would be experimenting with a variety of platforms to get the message out.
“We’ve got to diversify from social media,” he said. “Posters, radio, getting interpreters to get that message out, and of course even TV.
“The messaging around the vaccine has to give our communities the confidence that this is safe and to reduce the risk of our communities having the pandemic spread.”
Doctor Andrew Webster, Head of Clinical Governance at Danila Dilba, said there has been a lot of misinformation around the vaccine.
“The temptation is to get a lot of the information from the internet and social media,” Dr Webster told SBS News.
“I think there’s a lot of variability in where that information is coming from.
“I think that people who are worried about this vaccine or worried about anything to do with coronavirus [should] speak to a trusted health professional.”
There have been 107 COVID-19 cases diagnosed in the Northern Territory since the pandemic began, all related to international or interstate travel. There has been no evidence of community transmission to date.
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