Letitia’s Message

Well, we’re certainly living in interesting times!

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all enormously. We’ve all been working from home and keeping things going, but it’s certainly good to be back in the office now.

Our thoughts are with all of our respiratory whānau, and we hope that you managed to get through the pandemic healthy and well. It has been a challenging time, and the team here at ARFNZ have worked incredibly hard to bring you the latest information on what the different alert levels would mean to you and your family.

Earlier in the month, the Smoke Free Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill entered into public consultation (again, remotely), and appears to be a good fit with the Foundation’s goals. Importantly, the Bill will not penalise those using vaping for smoking cessation, but introduces strong regulations around youth uptake and advertising.

This legislation is about 95% of what we wanted to see from a respiratory health perspective. However, if these products are intended to help people quit smoking, there should be robust support systems in place to accomplish this, and these must be delivered at the point of sale. We’re still interested in how safety standards will be set and regulated, and how 18+ sales will be monitored online, but these issues won’t be solved overnight.

Our shared goal is better respiratory health for all New Zealand, and we need to work together to achieve this.

Following the Bill, we also celebrated World Asthma Day in lockdown; our annual awareness campaign to educate Kiwis about one of New Zealand’s most prevalent respiratory diseases.

With our plans cancelled due to COVID, the team and I certainly had to think fast on our feet to make changes to the way we were going to engage this World Asthma Day. After numerous ‘Zoom’ brain storming meetings we embarked on our first entirely digital campaign, and I am pleased to say that this was a great success.

ARFNZ CE, Letitia Harding

throughout World Asthma Day on May 5th. This included a Sailor the Puffer Fish Asthma Musical with Chris Lam Sam, a crafting session with Kikorangi the Asthma Fairy, and a live Q&A session with our asthma and respiratory expert, Dr James Fingleton.

Each year, World Asthma Day provides a wonderful opportunity to promote awareness, and encourage self-management of asthma. Lockdown made traditional outreach challenging, but we are pleased that the variety in the World Asthma Day content allowed for people to learn more about asthma, even if they wouldn’t usually consider it a priority.

We also have to say a huge thank you to our sponsor DeLonghi – who donated a Magnifica S Smart coffee machine for our ‘Donate your Coffee’ draw. Over 800 people entered the competition, raising over $3,000!

Lastly, I am pleased to announce that the Foundation was recognised as a major leader in the field of asthma during lockdown, and was invited to be a GINA (Global Initiative for Asthma) advocate for a 3 year term from May 2020. This appointment highlights the calibre and esteem which the Foundation is held in, and we thank those Foundation team members who have come before us since 1964 in paving the way.