Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. Photo: RNZ / Reece Baker
Young Māori and Pasifika in Hawke's Bay are no longer eligible on the basis of their ethnicity to receive some free healthcare services after the health minister intervened and demanded the policy be changed.
In August, Health New Zealand's regional arm, OurHealth Hawke's Bay, posted to its website about Health NZ's efforts to refine the criteria used to fund additional free GP and registered nurse healthcare services in the region for young people aged 14-24 years.
The initial post said the eligibility criteria included anyone in that age group who was Māori or Pasifika. It also included those who held a community services card, lived in the most deprived areas or were diagnosed with one of several long-term conditions such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
ACT last week expressed concern about the policy with party health spokesman Todd Stephenson saying "targeting services based on race is lazy and divisive".
"The change in government should have sent a clear message to our bureaucracies that New Zealanders are sick and tired of race being put at the centre of everything," he said.
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti on Monday told Newstalk ZB he had spoken today with health officials involved in the policy and demanded it be changed.
He pointed to his Government Policy Statement on health which placed need as the highest priority influencing service delivery, with the practice of targeting certain population groups less important.
"[The health officials] got that round the wrong way and have now corrected it," Reti said. "I truly believe they were well-intentioned but they hadn't read the room.
"My Government Policy Statement has been out for several months now. Read the room, read the statement, that is the direction of travel."
OurHealth Hawke's Bay's post has since been changed and now detailed an updated set of criteria without Māori and Pasifika being eligible.
However, the post did not acknowledge a change in the policy, nor did it state the post had been updated.
A Health NZ spokeswoman has been approached for comment.
The health inequities between Māori and Pasifika communities and Pākehā were well-known. Non-Māori had a life expectancy seven years greater than Māori.
Under the previous Labour government, Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand introduced an Equity Adjustor Score, which aimed to reduce inequity in the system by using an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), ethnicity and deprivation level.
Some health officials argued ethnicity was just one of five factors considered in deciding when a person gets surgery, and that it was an important step in addressing poor health outcomes within Māori and Pacific populations.
Reti, then National's health spokesman in opposition, was highly critical of the tool even as he acknowledged long-standing inequities.
"While there has been historical inequity that has disadvantaged Māori and Pasifika people, the idea that any government would deliberately rank ethnicities for priority for surgery is offensive, wrong and should halt immediately," he said in June last year.
"The way to improve Māori and Pasifika health is through better housing, education and addressing the cost of living, not by disadvantaging others."
- This story was originally published by the New Zealand Herald.