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Download AudioA Māori health claimant says a new report confirms the systemic under-spending that has consigned whānau to generations of chronic ill health.
The redress report prepared for the Waitangi Tribunal by health economists Sapere estimated an extra $1 billion a year spent on Māori health would result in five-fold savings in health-related costs.
It also found Māori primary health organisations, which look after more than 300,000 people around the country, have been short-changed by more than $500 million since 2002.
Janice Kuka from Tauranga Māori health collective Ngā Mataapuna Oranga says the funding structures have failed to acknowledge that services to Māori need to be different because of what whānau expect and what they need.
She says the report increases pressure on the crown to fix it.
“So we’re saying ‘enough’. We have to have equity, You have to pay for that under-funding and we have to be more future-focused to tell you what it is we want in designing our own services because what you have designed is not what we want,” Ms Kuka says.
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