Cook Islands paediatric surgeon Dr Kiki Maoate has been appointed Chair of Fatu Fono Ola, New Zealand's Pacific Health Senate. Photo: Pasifika Medical Association Group
The newly appointed chairperson of the National Pacific Health Senate Fatu Fono Ola says he doesn't have the same concerns over the New Zealand government as the previous chair.
In December last year, prominent Pacific health leader Sir Collin Tukuitonga resigned from the position, saying at the time he had "no confidence" in the government and the new coalition was "not going to treat Pacific people well".
Cook Islands doctor appointed chair of NZ Pacific Health Senate
But the new chairperson, Cook Islands paediatric surgeon Dr Kiki Maoate, said political stances are personal choices, and he did not think it played a role in the job.
"While I agree to a certain extent that there will be challenges in the system, I don't agree that the government comes in purposefully to disadvantage a particular group of people," Maoate said.
"The government is the government, they're elected in place and our role is to work with the government and work with our communities to be effective."
Fatu Fono Ola is an independent advisory board of 11 senior Pacific clinicians which provides strategic advice to Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand.
Sir Collin also said he wanted to be free to "speak up and speak out" about the government when he stepped down.
Maoate said there were ways he was able to still criticise the government if he wanted to.
"My view of life is to be pretty direct," he said.
"The [Health] Minister is not far away, he has a direct line to any of us, and we have a direct line to the Minister.
"We have a contribution to make and we need to be effective about it and we need to be sensible about it."
'Make changes'
Maoate said he viewed poverty "in the broadest sense of the word" as the biggest barrier for Pacific people accessing health care.
"Poverty issues is always going to disadvantage any population group at the lower end of the rung and the majority of our people are there.
"We need to make changes to that, at the same time obviously supporting the healthcare in the meantime, but the long term is to reduce the poverty in the community."
He said a lack of knowledge around the health system is also a challenge.
Maoate said he wanted more investment into health coaches who live in the community and are able to help people with their conditions.
He also wanted to see the results of how effective media campaigns like paper and TV ads have been in helping health outcomes.
"If I look at the epidemic with diabetes, if I look at the ongoing detrimental health outcomes, we're not actually improving any of that.
"So doing the same thing is not going to help."