Dangerous in what sense?
That is a fair question, because "dangerous" is an extraordinarily serious accusation. It suggests that Māori are placed at risk by the health system itself—not by illness, not by lifestyle factors, not by socio-economic disadvantage, but by the doctors, nurses, hospitals and institutions entrusted with caring for them.
There is no doubt that Māori experience poorer health outcomes than many other New Zealanders. Rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses are higher, while average life expectancy remains lower. These disparities are real and should concern every New Zealander.
However, poorer health outcomes do not, by themselves, prove that the health system is discriminatory or unsafe. A difference in outcomes does not automatically identify the cause.
New Zealand's public health system does not refuse treatment based on ethnicity. Emergency departments do not ask a patient's race before providing lifesaving care. Hospitals perform surgery according to clinical need. Ambulance crews respond to emergencies regardless of ancestry. Every doctor, nurse and paramedic is professionally and ethically bound to treat patients according to medical need, not ethnicity.
That is not to suggest the system is perfect. Long waiting lists, workforce shortages and unequal access to primary healthcare affect many New Zealanders. Rural communities, lower-income families and elderly patients frequently experience barriers to healthcare. These are genuine problems that deserve attention.
The question is whether those problems demonstrate institutional racism, or whether they largely reflect broader social and economic realities.
If the health system itself is dangerous, what is the evidence? Are Māori denied surgery because they are Māori? Are they turned away from emergency departments? Are they refused medication because of their ethnicity? These would indeed demonstrate a dangerous system. But where is the evidence that such practices are occurring?
Health outcomes are influenced by many factors outside the healthcare system itself. Smoking rates, obesity, alcohol misuse, housing quality, educational attainment, income, family circumstances and the willingness to seek medical treatment all play significant roles. These factors affect many communities across New Zealand and cannot simply be attributed to the actions of the health system.
Successive governments have long recognised disparities in Māori health and have responded by directing substantial additional funding into Māori-specific services. Māori health providers have operated for decades. More recently, Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, was established to improve Māori outcomes through targeted funding, planning and policy. Between 2020/21 and 2024/25 alone, Māori health providers received well over $4 billion in taxpayer funding, with annual funding increasing from around $585 million to more than $1.09 billion.
If, despite these targeted programmes, the outcomes remain stubbornly unequal, surely it is reasonable to ask whether the policies themselves should be evaluated before concluding that the entire healthcare system is fundamentally unsafe for Māori.
Unfortunately, describing the health system as "dangerous" risks undermining public confidence in the very professionals who dedicate their lives to caring for others. Thousands of doctors, nurses, specialists, ambulance officers and first responders work under immense pressure every day, treating patients according to medical need rather than ethnicity. To characterise the system they serve as inherently dangerous because of race is a sweeping claim that requires compelling evidence.
Improving Māori health should remain a national priority. But lasting improvements will come from honestly addressing the underlying causes of poor health, strengthening primary care, encouraging healthier lifestyles, improving prevention and ensuring timely access to treatment for all New Zealanders.
We should certainly debate how best to improve health outcomes. But that debate must be based on evidence, not rhetoric; on solutions, not accusations. New Zealanders deserve a healthcare system that treats every patient with dignity, compassion and equal commitment, regardless of race.
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.
However, poorer health outcomes do not, by themselves, prove that the health system is discriminatory or unsafe. A difference in outcomes does not automatically identify the cause.
New Zealand's public health system does not refuse treatment based on ethnicity. Emergency departments do not ask a patient's race before providing lifesaving care. Hospitals perform surgery according to clinical need. Ambulance crews respond to emergencies regardless of ancestry. Every doctor, nurse and paramedic is professionally and ethically bound to treat patients according to medical need, not ethnicity.
That is not to suggest the system is perfect. Long waiting lists, workforce shortages and unequal access to primary healthcare affect many New Zealanders. Rural communities, lower-income families and elderly patients frequently experience barriers to healthcare. These are genuine problems that deserve attention.
The question is whether those problems demonstrate institutional racism, or whether they largely reflect broader social and economic realities.
If the health system itself is dangerous, what is the evidence? Are Māori denied surgery because they are Māori? Are they turned away from emergency departments? Are they refused medication because of their ethnicity? These would indeed demonstrate a dangerous system. But where is the evidence that such practices are occurring?
Health outcomes are influenced by many factors outside the healthcare system itself. Smoking rates, obesity, alcohol misuse, housing quality, educational attainment, income, family circumstances and the willingness to seek medical treatment all play significant roles. These factors affect many communities across New Zealand and cannot simply be attributed to the actions of the health system.
Successive governments have long recognised disparities in Māori health and have responded by directing substantial additional funding into Māori-specific services. Māori health providers have operated for decades. More recently, Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, was established to improve Māori outcomes through targeted funding, planning and policy. Between 2020/21 and 2024/25 alone, Māori health providers received well over $4 billion in taxpayer funding, with annual funding increasing from around $585 million to more than $1.09 billion.
If, despite these targeted programmes, the outcomes remain stubbornly unequal, surely it is reasonable to ask whether the policies themselves should be evaluated before concluding that the entire healthcare system is fundamentally unsafe for Māori.
Unfortunately, describing the health system as "dangerous" risks undermining public confidence in the very professionals who dedicate their lives to caring for others. Thousands of doctors, nurses, specialists, ambulance officers and first responders work under immense pressure every day, treating patients according to medical need rather than ethnicity. To characterise the system they serve as inherently dangerous because of race is a sweeping claim that requires compelling evidence.
Improving Māori health should remain a national priority. But lasting improvements will come from honestly addressing the underlying causes of poor health, strengthening primary care, encouraging healthier lifestyles, improving prevention and ensuring timely access to treatment for all New Zealanders.
We should certainly debate how best to improve health outcomes. But that debate must be based on evidence, not rhetoric; on solutions, not accusations. New Zealanders deserve a healthcare system that treats every patient with dignity, compassion and equal commitment, regardless of race.
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.
21 comments:
Factor in lifestyle choices. Maori, Pacific, and now our Indian migrants. "India is currently facing a massive diabetes epidemic, with the overall adult prevalence rate reaching approximately 10.5% to 13%. Nationwide, this translates to roughly 90 to 101 million adults living with diabetes, alongside an additional 136 million individuals identified as pre-diabetic."
Is it possible, that despite all efforts to improve maori health outcomes that we have reached a sticking point because, genetically, that is all maori can expect? Instead of being genetically superior as some part-maori academic opined, maori have genetic defects or limitations that will always leave them behind the statistics of other ethnicities? It not must be forgotten how many years have been added anyway to maori longevity from the 1840s since their first contact with European medicine and health guidance. Practically doubled; perhaps there is just an upper limit that has now been reached? Taking livestock genetic improvements as an example, there is a point beyond which further improvements can not be made, or at least gains are so tiny, that further efforts are not biologically or economically feasible.
Not going to encourage Maori to seek earlly medical help if it is so dangerous. So the stats worsen.
LNF, please acknowledge source when quoting.
Barend. “Search “Indian diabetes rate”
I had dealings with Indians 30 years ago and it was a fact then.
Improving health for all NZers should be the priority.
In the Far North the health system is a danger to non-maori. A drop of suitable blood ensures you get popped to the front of the queue. Several friends hate that it happens, but have still used it to get help.
The real problem for Maori up here is the number that don't bother turning up to appointments or surgeries.
I'm not disputing the fact, Anon 921, just reminding you of the need to identify sources of quotes. Otherwise someone might accuse you of plagiarism, oh horror of horrors.
The criical takeaway from this article is the question by how much has the disparity between Maori healh outcomes compared with non-Maori been reduced as a direct result of the millions siphonedi off by Maori health providers. Show me the quantitative evidence that approach has worked. And if it hasn't, why are we even talking about continuing the practice?
It's arguable that Maori 'behaviour' is deleterious to everyone's health. Why, for example do some maternity wards ship mothers out the door within 4 hours of birth (if at all possible). One must at least consider the possibility that this would be due to the poor behaviour and/or shear numbers of whanau visitors, though of course no-one would actually say so!
The taxpayer stumps up $Billions annually to get 'invested' in all kinds of Maori initiatives, including health, and yet what does it actually achieve? The worst statistics in almost every sphere of social pathology.
So, isn't it well overdue that we should require far more accountability, otherwise why do we continue to direct these vast sums to a lost cause for no apparent benefit, let alone any gratitude? Or, is this just another case of 'Maori and money' where no accountability is expected nor required - just perpetual grievance and entitlement?
The statistics are always used to justify more expenditure, but where are they on the accountability side of the ledger, and what do the likes of the Tamihere and Jackson health empires actually achieve?
If Maori can't be bothered with sorting their own health issues just like everyone else, why should anyone else care, abd give them priority ?
It just boggles me that Oxford University gave Ardern a Degree in Kindness, without doing any proper research into her unkind injust treatment of ordinary Kiwis, by giving Maori priority in all health matters.
Oxford went woke, just like fake unis here.
The NZF coalition agreement said they would cancel the Maori Health Authority. Hurry up NZF
Between 2007 and 2024 Maori average life expectancy grew by 3.9 years with an average lifespan of 75.8 years, far outpacing any change other ethnic group which saw increases of 1.5 - 1.6 years.
Average life expectancy was 82.8 years for people who identify with European or Other (including New Zealander) ethnicities, 76.9 years for people who identify with a Pacific ethnicity
86.3 years for people who identify with an Asian ethnicity.
Yes, they have a lower life expectancy than other ethnicities, but we're talking about a group whose pre-colonisation life expectancy was ~30 years of age. Things are going in the right direction doing things as we are.
Asians live longer than Europeans on average. Is the healthcare systematically racist towards Asians? No.
Pacific peoples also have lower life expectancy than Europeans. The diets Maori and Pacific people consume post-colonisation are not well suited to their makeup, but the same is also true of many Europeans.
I think comparisons need to be made between Maori peoples who have kept Christian ways of living and those who haven't. I think there a lot of the gaps when it comes to education and health outcomes will be revealed to be caused by divorce, unmarried parents and unstable families leading to a higher degree of welfare dependency and higher rates of family violence and drug and alcohol abuse.
Anon 626's parting thoughts would likely backfire badly when the data reveal that those who "have kept Muslim ways of living" come out on top in these comparisons. No booze, high levels of personal hygiene, low-cholesterol diet, high value placed on family and education..... they can hardly go wrong!
You'd think they'd be grateful for the medical advances brought by those nasty white colonisers - they would have died much earlier from all factors in pre-colonial times
Be grateful? Anon 7-06pm. Never happen. Doesn't suit the victim/oppressed narrative that Tamahere, Jackson et al want to promote
Individual responsibility accounts for much of the lower health statistics for Maori: for example the not turning up for appointments mentioned. "Maori time" has much to answer for.
To 'Unknown' who submitted a comment entitled 'The Myth of Maori Socio-Economic Disparity', your comment is just about article-length. Consider turning it into an article. Make sure, however, that you offer something original.
The same applies to your comment about Maori indigeneity.
I struggle with such statistics because identifying as ‘Maori’ does not necessarily mean identical genes, lifestyle, post code or social-economic status. Just today I travelled with a very white couple, however she sported a moko & he ‘Maori’-branded clothing. Such ‘Maori’ would definitely mess with the stats.
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