October 06, 2021
Māori health data fight headed for court
The North Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency is taking its fight for health data to the High Court later today or tomorrow.
The agency wants to share some contact details from the National Health Information database with whānau ora providers so they can more effectively target whanau Māori for Covid vaccinations.
Chief executive John Tamihere says the Health Ministry told him it was supplying the data, and then a day later said it wasn’t because it would jeopardise the vaccination roll out.
“If the vaccination roll out isn’t jeopardised 11 weeks before Christmas amongst Māori by their sabotage, I don’t know what isn’t. Hand over our data because it is going to be life or death. So we will be heading to the High Court later today or early tomorrow to seek orders from the court to direct Mr Bloomfield and his friends to hand our data over so we can roll out a Māori-designed programme for vaccinations,” he says.
Mr Tamihere says the Health Ministry has blocked Māori efforts to design or influence the vaccination roll out at every step.