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An iwi leader is questioning the way the Health Ministry is calling for the development of new Māori mental health services.
The ministry has called for requests for proposals for services to be funded out of the well-being budget, and says it’s already working with Māori on developing such services.
Debbie Ngarewa Packer from Ngati Ruanui says the announcement will be given considerable discussion at this week’s Iwi Chairs Forum in Picton, with participant questioning who the ministry was talking to.
She says the crown should know now who its treaty partners are and has settled with many of them, so it should be able to deal directly rather than make iwi jump through hoops.
"The honey needs to trickle form the ground up, not be caught in bureaucracy, not be caught up in procurement processes and aspects that then have a duck away from being able to be impacted at its best level which is directly with our whānau which need to have these services which for a long time have been denied," Mrs Ngarewa Packer says.
She says RFPs can be about the person with the best pen rather than the person with the best services.
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