Arotake: There’s a Cure for This nā Dr Emma Espiner

Ko ngā pukapuka katoa ka hokona mā tēnei hononga ka āwhina i a mātou ki te arotake i ētahi atu pukapuka nō Aotearoa - ngā mihi ki a koe mōu i tautoko i ngā pukapuka me ngā kaituhi o Aotearoa.

An English language translation is included below this review.

Ka mahara ahau he wahine whakaaro nui, he wahine tōrangapū a Tākuta Emma Espiner i ōna putanga maha ki te pouaka whakaata. Ahakoa whai wāhi atu ai ki ngā pae kōrero, ahakoa tuku rānei i ōna whakaaro mō te pōti nui, he wahine atamai, he wahine pai ki te kōrero, he wahine takatū. I whakaaro ake rā ahau he aha ia ōna kōrero nā runga i te tapaina noatia ōna ki te karangatanga ‘kaituku kōrero ā-pāpori’ i ēnei hōtaka nei. Ko te pukapuka tuatahi a Espiner, ko “There’s a Cure for This” te whakautu ki te pātai i toko ake, ā, ka paku kitea e te kaipānui te ara i takahia i puta ai ia ki te pouaka whakaata, otirā ia, i puta ai anō hoki tōna ihu hei rata ki Middlemore Hospital, he āhuatanga kāore ahau i mōhio nō mua mai i taku pānui i te pukapuka nei.

Kua wāwāhia mai te tuhinga nei ki ētahi wāhanga iti o te oranga o Espiner, ānō nei he kohinga tuhinga poto nei te hanga. Ka whitiwhiti ia mai i tētahi wā ki tētahi kē atu, ka tīmata ki tōna ohinga me te āta whakatakoto i ngā rerenga kētanga me ngā ritenga i waenga nui i tōna whānau Māori me tōna whānau Pākehā. I whakatipuria matuatia ia e tōna “māmā takatāpui” i tētahi whare kāwanatanga ki Te Awakairangi. Ko tōna māmā te pou engari he nui tonu te wā i noho tahi ai ia ki tōna pāpā i whakakapi rā i te tūranga ki te matua ngahau me te hoa pūmau. Ka hoki ana mahara ki te wā i rangatahi ai ia ki te Whare Wānanga, ā, hei kaimahi ngaio pūhou anō hoki nōna ka tūhāhā i ngā wāhi ko ia anake, i ētahi wā, te kanohi māori. Taro ake, ka whakamōhiotia tātou ki te āhua o tana wehe i tāna mahi rangatira, nui te utu, e whakangungua ai ia hei rata, tahi ki te takahi i te ara o te māmā. I rawe ki ahau te hoki ki ngā tau 90 i ngā upoko mātāmua, inā he tamaiti hoki ahau i whānau mai i ngā tau 90, nō reira ko ngā kupu a Espiner i waituhi mai i tētahi pikitia e tino mōhio nei ahau.

He poto ngā upoko, ā, i ōna wā ka takoto i a ia ētahi kaupapa taumaha pēnei i te kaikiri, ngā tōrite ā-hauora, te hauora ā-hinengaro, engari ka pāpaku noa pea te rukuruku ki ēnei kaupapa. Ahakoa tēnei, i rongo tonu ahau i taku matangerengere mōna, āpaia rā i te wāhi mō te whakangungu hei tauira rata Māori me te taraweti i rangona e rātou ko ngāi MAPA (Māori and PAcific Admission Scheme) i ō rātou pia. Mehemea he hua i puta, ko te manawa kairoke o Espiner ki te whakatutuki i tāna i hiahia ai.

Ko tāna kōrero ki ngā tauira e rongo ana hoki i ēnei āhuatanga i tēnei wā ko tēnei:

“Don't let petty, envy and mean spirited racist attitudes dissuade you from your aspirations. Our people need you, your colleagues need you and the health system needs you. The crazy thing is once you graduate and you're working as a Doctor, the system can’t get enough of our Māori and Pasifika doctors”. 

I mahara rā ahau ka hohonu ake pea te kōrero ā-pāpori mō te mate urutā Kōwheori-19, inā rā, i tākuta ai ia i te hounga mai, ā, me tāna mahi hei kaikōrero i ēnei tūāhuatanga i te pouaka whakaata, engari ka noho pūmau ia ki ōna anō wheako, āna anō kōrero e kite ai tātou i ngā piki me ngā heke i pā ki a rātou ko ōna hoamahi i te roanga o te mate urutā. Ka kōrero hāngai ia mō ngā Tairo a Kupe hei rata torekaihuruhuru, e whakaahua ana i ngā wā i tino uaua, i tino pāmamae, ā, ahakoa hanga aroha kē ana tēnei āhuatanga, nāna hoki i whakauru mai i ētahi āhuatanga pai hei whakamāuru ake i tērā.

Katoa, katoa, he pukapuka ngāwari ki te pānui. I horomia noatia e au i ētahi rangi ruarua. Mā te wairua whakakatakata o Espiner e kaingākautia ai te kōrero nei, otirā ko āna kōrero, ōna whakahokinga mahara mō tōna oranga me ōna hapa e mārama ana ki te kaipānui, otirā, he akoranga o roto.

Dr. Emma Espiner has always seemed to me, to be a thoughtful social and political commentator. In her media appearances, whether participating in a morning show panel or providing election commentary, she's quick on her feet, articulate, and thoroughly prepared. The label, ‘social commentator,’ which the media often give her, has meant that I have sometimes wondered what her background might be. Espiner's debut book, There's a Cure for This, answers that for me, giving readers a brief insight into how she came to be on our television screens and also how she retrained to become a doctor, working at Middlemore Hospital, something I had no idea about until I came across this memoir.

The memoir is broken up into snippets of Espiner's life, reading like a collection of mini essays. She moves back and forth between timelines, starting with her childhood, detailing the differences and similarities between her Pākehā and Māori whānau. She was raised predominantly by her lesbian mother in a state house in Lower Hutt. Her mother was the stable parent figure but Espiner also spent a lot of time hanging out with her father who took on the role of fun parent and best friend. She recounts what it was like as a young adult at university and as a young professional, navigating spaces when sometimes she was the only brown face in the room. This eventually brings us to how she left her high-paying corporate job to retrain as a doctor while, at the same time, managing motherhood. I did enjoy the 90s nostalgia in the early chapters, being a child of the 90s myself, Espiner’s writing painted a picture of a time and place I'm familiar with.

The chapters are short and while, at times, she deals with heavy subjects such as racism, health inequalities, and mental health, she stops short of delving too deeply into these topics. Having said that, I still found myself feeling irritated on her behalf, especially during the part about what it was like to train as a Māori medical student and the hostility she and other MAPAS (The Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme) students faced from their peers. If anything this experience seemed to drive Espiner to want to be better and work harder.

Her message to students going through the same thing now is:

“Don't let petty, envy and mean spirited racist attitudes dissuade you from your aspirations. Our people need you, your colleagues need you and the health system needs you. The crazy thing is once you graduate and you're working as a Doctor, the system can’t get enough of our Māori and Pasifika doctors”. 

I did think that there would be more explicit social commentary about the COVID-19 pandemic, given that Espiner became a junior doctor on the cusp of it and also given her media career but she keeps it focused on her experiences and anecdotes giving us glimpses of the struggles that she and her colleagues faced during the pandemic.  She is brutally honest about the challenges she faced as a junior doctor, describing the times when it felt draining and traumatic and although this may seem all doom and gloom, she definitely has peppered it with a good dose of optimism.

Overall, the book is a light and easy read. I was able to breeze through it in a couple of days. Espiner's dark humour keeps it interesting, and her introspective commentary on her life decisions and mistakes are both relatable and insightful. 

Reviewed by Hineko Kingi

This is a translation of the review above which was written first in te reo Māori.