May 01, 2024
Place sought for rongoā in hospitals
The chair of the Accident Compensation Commission’s Rongoā Māori Advisory Panel says there is still a lot of resistance from mainstream healthcare providers to Māori healing practices and knowledge.
Awhitia Mihaere, of Ngāti Kahungunu, says in the decades she has been a rongoā practitioner there has been growing acceptance at community level that Māori methods are effective.
Combining the best of western health and rongoā practices is the way forward..
“There really needs to be more rongoā inside of hospitals. Our practitioners are well-trained. We need to be more united and have an integration approach of how we can work for the benefit of health for all peoples within our communities,” Ms Mihaere says.
The inaugural ACC Rongoā Māori Conference in Rotorua later this month is an attempt to bring together rongoā Māori practitioners and health providers to grow understanding of traditional Māori healing and its place in Aotearoa New Zealand’s health sector.