Affirmative action good but merit needs reward

WHILE I applaud affirmative pathways in the selection of Maori, Pasifika, rural, low socioeconomic, and refugee candidates (ODT, 12.9.20), I would like to make some salient points.

Professor Mantell may be suffering from ‘‘elderly forgetfulness’’ with his statement that there were only two Maori members of his secondyear class of which I was a member. Including himself and Professor Durie, there were four members with Maori whakapapa and one Samoan.

I note in the other article that there are now over 50% of the secondyear class who have come through the affirmative pathway. Where does this number stop?

As the son of a Pakeha bus driver from a small rural town, I gained entry as a result of hard work and good marks in my medical intermediate year and funded my way through university by working long hours at the freezing works over summer holidays.

Surely, hard work and merit need to be rewarded.

Will the opponents of a cap on the affirmative pathway only be happy when 70%, 80% or 90% of those selected come through this pathway? What about the rest of the bright, hardworking young people who aspire to a career in medicine who are excluded by their race and socioeconomic background?

My other comment is aimed at your columnist, Civis, whose column contains rather sarcastic comments about ‘‘vaguely pinkish parents’’ and demeaning comments about the achievement of high marks not being necessary to be a good doctor.

I would like to point out to him that medicine is a broad church where all types can find a career from the friendly GP to a monastic research scientist with surgeons and pathologists in between.

I reiterate that I applaud the affirmative pathway but believe there must be a time in the near future that a limit will have to be placed on the numbers.

Douglas Cox

Lake Hayes

Euthanasia

YES, the End of Life Choice Act referendum is about euthanasia and assisted suicide (Letters, 2.9.20).

The Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Health wrote in their Departmental Report on the End of Life Choice Bill:

‘‘The Bill uses ‘assisted dying’ to refer to both euthanasia and assisted suicide. Euthanasia refers to a patient being administered a lethal drug by a medical practitioner. Assisted suicide refers to a patient receiving lethal drugs at their request, which they take by themselves.’’

Incidentally, the same report estimates that the process proposed by this Act, from the person making a request to the reporting of the death, could take as few as four working days in a hospital setting — provided all parties are available and the person’s competency doesn’t need to be assessed by a psychiatrist.

After this report was written, some amendments were made to the Bill, which included allowing nurse practitioners to administer the lethal dose. However, no amendments affected the time the whole process would take.

Renee Joubert EuthanasiaFree NZ executive

officer

Cannabis

STAN Randle (Letters, 9.9.20) asks how those in favour of legalising cannabis reconcile endorsement of smoking when the scientific evidence shows smoke is harmful to the lungs, heart, and so on.

The answer is, of course, they don’t. No endorsement of smoking or cannabis. They endorse changing cannabis users from ‘‘criminals’’ to ‘‘patients’’, because the evidence is prohibition doesn’t work, and they see a health problem that moralising and crooked thinking will not fix.

Dennis Horne

Howick ...................................

BIBLE READING: To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. — Romans 8.6.

IN recognition of the importance of readers’ contributions to the letters page, the newspaper each week selects a Letter of the Week with a book prize courtesy of Penguin Random House. This week’s winner is Jan Robb, of Cromwell, for a letter about the use of medicinal cannabis and the referendum. The prize is a copy of The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbo.

The winning letter was printed on Wednesday and can be read on the ODT website.