Māori Party Whānau Health

~ In Control Of Our Own Oranga

Executive Summary

The inconvenient truth is that the health system fails Māori.

The evidence for this assertion is outlined in the Health & Disability System Review – also known as the Simpson Review (2020).

There have been multiple reviews that evidence systemic racism within the health services area. This plays out across the whole of government and therefore the whole of society.

The absolute failure of the Government over several decades in regard to ensuring Māori achieve an equality of access and then outcome is best evidenced by the health portfolio. Health as with welfare, education, justice and housing is a mirror image of the degrading way in which Māori are treated.

Tinkering with systems across the whole of government will not achieve any positive outcome because doing the same thing, gets the same result.

As with all our policy releases, we speak our liberated truth in the land of our ancestors.

The Māori Party will;

Establish A Māori Health Funding Authority ~ Māori In Control of The Health Spend For Māori

That authority will oversee the purchasing, distribution and operational delivery of our per capita budget health entitlement. The budget for this Māori Health Funding Authority will be $5 billion, which is 20% of the 2019/2020 Health Budget.

The Māori Party will;

Implement A Māori Health Card ~ Whānau In Control Of The Health Services They Need

Issued to all Māori linked to their NHI number and ensures that health funding follows the Māori patient and not a DHB, a PHO, or a GP. Health must be about the patient, and funding must follow that patient’s preferences. We can no longer have our money spent for us on a service that fails us.

The Māori Party will;

Establish A Comprehensive Kaupapa Māori Mental Health Service ~ Our Mental Wellbeing Comes First

This service will be funded to the order of $500 million per annum and this will be transferred from the existing mental health service funds voted in Budget 2020. This will cover off mental health, alcohol and addictions. It will focus on dropping one of the highest suicide rates amongst any people in the world.

The Maori Party will;

Drop Māori Cancer Screening By 10 years ~ Ensuring We Get An Equal Right to Preventative Services

Effective immediately to ensure Māori get an equal right to preventative services because we present 10 years earlier in difficulty. This policy alone shows how deeply ingrained racism is by knowingly assigning hundreds of Māori to a premature cancer death. How? By denying us access to earlier screening.