April 11, 2023
Indigenous plan needed to tackle kidney disease gaps
Kidney Health New Zealand is calling for urgent action to address major disparities in treatment for kidney disease.
Acting general manager Traci Stanbury says one in four Māori have some form of kidney disease, and one in three people who go on to need either dialysis or a kidney transplant are Māori.
In the past five years only seven Māori patients received a pre-emptive kidney transplant compared with 125 non-Māori, non-Pasifika patients.
She says Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora need to encourage more transparency and tikanga Māori policies and practices to achieve equity of care, including consideration of a proposed Māori kidney transplant taskforce.
“The current health system isn’t designed for Indigenous people. We actually need to be having cultural safety as a key aspect of our workforce training and development. healthcare providers should be providing whanau-based healthcare within an Indigenous framework and we need ethnicity data collection so we can better identify and reduce the inequities,” Ms Stanbury says.
In 2021 Kidney Health NZ called for an explicit goal to increase the number of transplants for Māori and Pacifika people and now the health agencies need to step up with the resources.