Former Pharmac board member Anthony Jordan says it may be too late to take Te Tiriti o Waitangi out of health delivery.

Dr Jordan quit last week after a press conference where Associate Health Minister David Seymour and Pharmac chair Paula Bennett explained the decision to remove the treaty reference from the minister’s letter of expectations to the board.

He says that did not align with the direction the organisation had been moving in, and it was not an expectation he wanted to be part of delivering.

“What it does is it gives a signal to Maori we can just be disregarded or erased or ‘don’t worry, we can pick you up in some other fashion.’ That’s not the lived experience and it’s not the experience in health outcomes,’ Dr Jordan says.

Dr Jordan says the Pharmac board was starting to see positive change from greater recognition of treaty principles across the health system, and the value of that can’t be unlearned, whatever the minister may expect.