Home

Home » maori health

Pages tagged with: maori health

South Island influenza death rates
Death rates in South Island towns and counties from the influenza pandemic
Aftermath - 1918 influenza pandemic
Robert Makgill Following the pandemic speculation continued over the Niagara's involvement in bringing the virus to New Zealand. The Department of Public Health was also heavily criticised. The government responded by setting up a royal commission with wide powers of investigation. It fell to Robert Makgill, acting Chief Health Officer, to implement the Commission's recommendations. One of the recommendations, which Makgill had argued for, was for a new Health Act ‘to consolidate and simplify the existing legislation'.
Response to the influenza pandemic
Uneven rates of death - 1918 influenza pandemic
It is clear that no matter how the second wave developed in New Zealand, it was many times more deadly than any previous influenza outbreaks. No other event has killed so many New Zealanders in so short a space of time. While the First World War claimed the lives of more than 18,000 New Zealand soldiers over a four-year period, the second wave of the 1918 influenza epidemic killed almost 8600 people in less than two months. Influenza in institutions Death did not occur evenly throughout the country. Some communities were decimated; others escaped largely unscathed.
The pandemic begins abroad
The first wave When the ‘new pandemic flu’ first appeared in 1918 there was no immediate cause for alarm. The disease was different to other strains experienced in the past – for example, it was unusually prevalent amongst young healthy adults. But most people affected by what would turn out to be ‘the first wave’ of the pandemic recovered. The Spanish flu The 1918 influenza pandemic was commonly referred to as ‘the Spanish flu’ but it did not originate in Spain.
District nurse weighing baby, Waihara
District nurse weighing a baby, Waihara gumfields, Northland in the 1940s
Maori nurses
Unidentified Maori nurses, 1920s-30s.
The 1918 flu pandemic
The lethal influenza pandemic that struck New Zealand between October and December 1918 killed more than 8600 people in two months. No other event has claimed so many New Zealand lives in such a short time.
All in a day's work - living in the 20th century
Work structures daily life, influencing when people eat, what they wear, how they take 'time out'. While work is usually regarded as a task undertaken for pay outside the home, unpaid work (often by women) in the house, on the farm or in the community also makes a major contribution to the lives of individuals and to the economy.
Māori influenza pandemic memorial
This carved wooden Māori cenotaph was erected at Te Kōura marae in memory of those who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic.
© Crown Copyright. All text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence. Commercial re-use may be allowed on request. All non-text content is subject to specific conditions.
This site is produced by the History Group of the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Meet the NZHistory.net.nz team