The New Zealand Nurses Organisation is backing a new tool that includes ethnicity as one of the factors in setting waiting lists for surgery.
National and ACT are calling on the Government to scrap Te Whatu Ora’s Equity Adjustor Score, which is an extension of a similar tool used in Auckland hospitals since the pandemic.
Nurses Organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku says the tool is consistent with the Pae Ora Act, which requires the health system to operate in ways that uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
“If we want to remedy something we have to be bold and courageous in doing something different. Otherwise we will continue to create this inequitable situation we have got that unfortunately lands itself on Maori and Pasifika,” she says.
Ms Nuku says ethnicity is only one of five factors to be taken into account.
