We have been weighed down this week with the scrap over 14 layers of management, no doctors in Dargaville at certain times of the day, four new CEOs in four regional operations that will allegedly sort the mess out, former board members snapping back at criticism from the Prime Minister, and a myopic media trying their best to out Shane Reti on what may or may not be some sort of semi-scandal around his interpretation of the need to sack boards.
But there is good news. It's the removal, or the cancellation, of the ethnic diversity equity adjustor.
You'll remember it. It was a massive scrap under the last Government, who tried desperately to explain that using race was a good way to work out who to put at the front of the non-urgent surgery line.
Five indicators were used, things like age and location. But race was the one that got most of us upset, given we thought we lived in a fair and open country where race was not an issue when it comes to publicly funded services.
It was predicated on the idea that Māori are not well served by health, and in some respects that is true. But poor, old Chris Hipkins got himself woefully tied up in knots over an example of a person who lived rurally, many of them Māori, and how because you were rural you didn’t have the same access to doctors as you would in a city, which is true.
But then neither do you if you live rurally but aren't Māori. That particular piece of logic seemed to elude him.
When faced with the example of the two people with the same conditions and the same need fronting, except one was Māori and one wasn’t, why was it fair that race then made the difference? They couldn’t quite offer an explanation that made sense.
Ironically, some in the health service who reviewed it defended it. But people also seem to be able to defend Māori seats, Māori wards, Māori funding and services and entitlements that are purely race-based.
No wonder they are so angsty about David Seymour's Treaty bill. When the scales are tipped that far your way an injection of balance and fairness and open democracy must be a bit worrying.
So in health the race equity adjustor is going. A reason, if not to celebrate, at least to be relieved about.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
You'll remember it. It was a massive scrap under the last Government, who tried desperately to explain that using race was a good way to work out who to put at the front of the non-urgent surgery line.
Five indicators were used, things like age and location. But race was the one that got most of us upset, given we thought we lived in a fair and open country where race was not an issue when it comes to publicly funded services.
It was predicated on the idea that Māori are not well served by health, and in some respects that is true. But poor, old Chris Hipkins got himself woefully tied up in knots over an example of a person who lived rurally, many of them Māori, and how because you were rural you didn’t have the same access to doctors as you would in a city, which is true.
But then neither do you if you live rurally but aren't Māori. That particular piece of logic seemed to elude him.
When faced with the example of the two people with the same conditions and the same need fronting, except one was Māori and one wasn’t, why was it fair that race then made the difference? They couldn’t quite offer an explanation that made sense.
Ironically, some in the health service who reviewed it defended it. But people also seem to be able to defend Māori seats, Māori wards, Māori funding and services and entitlements that are purely race-based.
No wonder they are so angsty about David Seymour's Treaty bill. When the scales are tipped that far your way an injection of balance and fairness and open democracy must be a bit worrying.
So in health the race equity adjustor is going. A reason, if not to celebrate, at least to be relieved about.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Mike agree completely.
I've had an ongoing infection that has taken three courses of anti biotics to get under control. It still isn't completely resolved.
At my latest gp visit we discussed an IV anti biotic. Until we came to the part where it would be free if i was Maori, but would cost me $650.
Don't tell me there's no racism in the health system
A good reason to identify as Maori. MC
Regarding rouppe and the charging for non-maori patients. Has this blatant racism and discrimination been brought to the Minister's attention because it needs to be sorted out? In addition, and maybe more to the point, have doctors and health professionals been kicking back on this?
I'm told that it is not uncommon for it to be suggested 'that you must have some Maori ancestry' in order to qualify for free treatment. Tick the box, all done, if you are dealing with the 'right' person. Farcical situation. Need and a genuine inability to pay, not race should surely be the criteria to qualify for these state subsidies.
Yes, a cause for some celebration, but as others have pointed out, there's still discrimination that needs to be gone. And of the six CEO's that are now to oversee the running of our health services, how many of them have some frontline medical training? Any???
People are not happy with race based medicine, worse when a person might have paid taxes all their life and when they need an operation, they find that due to race based assessments, a person who never paid tax and lived on welfare in NZ that has an extensive prison and criminal history, might get health services ahead of them, because they identify as Maori. Not really looking good to encourage people to make the right decisions in their life or get more taxes. Tired of people who contribute little and do little to help themselves in NZ, enabled through others taxes and due to woke virtue signalling, to continue to make bad chooses and not look after themselves while wokies blame the tax payers.
Yes a drug user might not book an appointment and get that operation in a normal way (more likely to present as an emergency case), but maybe that is because their health is not their priority but drugs are! Those with certain lifestyles spend most of their life needing urgent medical help and have a range of disease due to a lifestyle that they choose. There are free GP's everywhere - you can't force people to go if they want to present at emergency instead. Same with obesity, smoking etc
The health system is not racist. Many clinical studies have proved this but now wokies claim anything, get government help and make all manner of claims that can not be challenged easily because they identity as a certain race and it's 'racist' to challenge them.
Government need to get rid of race bias, such as the creep into NZ research grants too, because NZ research is now junk status based on woke race based assessment of funding and new race 'researchers' beating an indigenous drum not based in science. Remember the $500,000 plus spent on NZ research that claimed Maori discovered Antartica first in a waka made of bones. Damaging to NZ and no outcry and demands that the funding be paid back for junk status research that was dutifully printed in MSM without any critical thinking that it was not credible research.
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