Addressing an ‘inconvenient truth’
Tamihere says Ma¯ori Party health policy aims to end ‘systemic racism’
Five billion dollars of New Zealand’s current health budget would be redirected by a new Ma¯ori Health Funding Authority group, under a new Ma¯ori Party policy.
That’s 20 per cent of the 2019/20 Budget.
Ma¯ori Party co-leader John Tamihere said it’s a move that would help put an end to “systemic racism” within our country’s health system so that Ma¯ori no longer slipped through the cracks.
He revealed, exclusively to the Herald, four policies as part of the party’s health package, including:
● Establishing a Ma¯ori Health Funding Authority with commissioning powers to oversee health purchasing, distribution and operational delivery of Ma¯ori services, with a $5b budget.
● Issuing all Ma¯ori a health card linked to their NHI (National Health Index) number so that funding to improve Ma¯ori health outcomes followed the patient and not the District Health Board, Primary Health Organisation or a GP.
● Establishing a Kaupapa Ma¯ori Mental Health Service that would use $500 million each year of existing
mental health service funds. It would focus on reducing Ma¯ori suicide rates and tackling alcohol and addiction among the minority community.
● Dropping the Ma¯ori bowel cancer screening age by 10 years to ensure Ma¯ori, who often present with the disease earlier than non-ma¯ori, get an equal right to preventative service.
The policies come after the Government-funded Heather Simpson Health and Disability System Review, released in June, called for a Ma¯ori Health Authority.
The authority group was a key
recommendation of a June 2019 report from Wai 2575, the Waitangi Tribunal’s inquiry into Ma¯ori health outcomes.
However, Simpson’s report received backlash from severalma¯ori advocate groups for opposing granting the agency commissioning powers.
Tamihere said effective change could not happen without funding to deliver.
If the agency had commissioning powers it could look around at who is already being commissioned to do certain things for Ma¯ori health and it could measure their performance. Based on each service’s measured performance, some would maintain their contracts and others could be redirected to more effective services, Tamihere said.
The proposed agency would be responsible for monitoring Ma¯ori health outcomes, managing Ma¯ori workforce initiatives, controlling Ma¯ori-specific innovation funds and advising Health NZ, the Ministry of Health and Minister of Health on how to address inequities in the system.
Under the current health system, the Government subsidises a general practice depending on level of need of its community — the higher the need, the more Government- funding the GP can get.
Tamihere said instead of giving GPS that extra funding it should be allocated to the high-need patient through a Ma¯ori health card.
That way Ma¯ori can choose where they go, instead of being forced to go to a cheaper practice which may not provide the best service, he said.
The party’s announcement to lower the cancer screening age by 10 years comes after the Ministry of Health recently saying it was not possible due the pressure on the services conducting the tests.
For bowel screening, the ministry said lowering the age for Ma¯ori would require about 10 per cent more screening colonoscopies and services were already struggling.
“Whilst we acknowledge the need to extend the age range to increase health gains for Ma¯ori and Pacific peoples . . . the only viable and safe option is to introduce the change once the programme is fully rolled out,” the ministry’s deputy directorgeneral of population health, Deborah Woodley, wrote in an email announcing the decision.
Tamihere said it was a “poor excuse” that “was not good enough”.
He said our system was outdated and that nurses could be upskilled to help do the colonoscopies.
Tamihere said the inconvenient truth was that the health system fails Ma¯ori.
“Tinkering with systems across the whole of Government will not achieve any positive outcome because doing the same thing, gets the same result.”