March 01, 2024
Māori health wind back bad for society
A Māori academic and GP says she’s devastated Te Aka Whai Ora was never given a proper chance to make a difference to Māori health inequities.
Parliament this week passed legislation to wind up the Māori Health Authority and return its programmes and contracts to Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora and the Ministry of Health.
Dr Matire Harwood, the head of the University of Auckland medical school’s department of general practice and primary healthcare, says she was a champion of the authority from the beginning, and she’s upset at the arguments used to kill it.
“It came from a place of aroha for our people. It didn’t come from a place of wanting to create segregation. It didn’t come from a place of not wanting to do better for the whole of the nation. We know that inequities don’t just affect those who are missing out, it actually affects the whole society,” she says
Dr Harwood says she’s also upset at the winding back of smokefree measures in the face of overwhelming evidence from public health experts that New Zealand was no the right track.