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National’s health spokesperson says the proposed health sector reforms will create unnecessary competition between Māori and mainstream.
Shane Reti says replacing 20 district health boards with Health NZ and its four regional divisions is a return to the regional health boards of the 1990s, which ignored the needs of regions like Taitokerau and Tairāwhiti.
The former Whangārei GP says throwing a Māori Health Authority into the mix doesn’t guarantee better services for Māori.
“They’ll compete for resources and the key resource they will compete for is health workforce and what will happen is the price goes up and HealthNZ will win because they are a bigger entity and they can spread the costs of that price increase across more services,” Dr Reti says.
It will also create complexity at the clinic level, as providers will be commissioned to deliver different outcomes for Māori and non-Māori patients.
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