https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-surgeons-must-now-consider-ethnicity-in-prioritising-patients-for-operations-some-are-not-happy/ONGOC263IFCF3LADSRR6VTGQWE/
Health officials said it was an important step in reducing historical health inequities.
When thought about in the greater context of triaging patients this makes sense. Unfortunately its clickbait presentation does it no favours.
There are a bunch of different factors that are considered when prioritising patients: obviously the disease itself, but also factors intrinsic to the patient - age, comorbidities, prognosis, familial history, etc. It's a long list. And just like (for example) a familial history of a certain disease meaning someone should be a little higher on the priority list, ethnicity actually makes sense to consider, particularly if you look at overall cost to the health system.
Regardless of the reasons, it's been well studied that Maori and Pasifika have generally poorer health outcomes. This has a direct, measurable cost to NZ and it makes sense to try to reduce this. At a granular level, if you have two otherwise identical patients, where one is pakeha and the other Maori, it likewise makes sense to prioritise the Maori patient to try to reduce those overall costs.
It's not about special treatment (excuse the pun) for Maori/Pasifika. It's about doing the most cost-effective thing for the NZ Health System.
I do understand and have sympathy for the argument for prioritising Maori when viewed from a Te Tiriti lens. However I respectfully don't understand the argument for putting Pacific peoples in the same category as Maori. Yes Pacific peoples have poor health outcomes but so do many other groups like refugees who do not get priority. The historical low wage worker import argument doesn't cut it either because Chinese people were also brought over yet Chinese don't receive special treatment.
This seems to be the new New Zealand way - there's a problem, but rather than analyse the causes and implement remedies based on that, go full dipshit and implement a solution that doesn't address the actual problem and probably won't fix it.
It's like the "road to zero" that we've copied from other countries. Except in other countries they look at what makes a road dangerous, an apply fixes based on that - installing barriers, straightening corners etc. In NZ that's too hard, so just blanket lower the speed limit as a catch all fix.
So there is a problem with Maori and Pacific not getting the same access as other groups. It's obviously too hard for anyone to figure out why that is, so just apply a policy that doesn't address the root cause and likely won't fix the problem.
It’s like the “road to zero” that we’ve copied from other countries. Except in other countries they look at what makes a road dangerous, an apply fixes based on that - installing barriers, straightening corners etc. In NZ that’s too hard, so just blanket lower the speed limit as a catch all fix.
This is a bad analogy.
We are spending significant amounts on building straighter, better roads. And installing barriers along them.
Sweden, where the road to zero concept was started (as Vision Zero) before spreading to other countries, puts significant focus on reducing speeds.
This is because no matter the cause of an accident, whether someone walks away from it is significantly dependent on what speed the vehicles were going.
It's also worth noting the Govt has basically told Waka Kotahi to stop reducing speed limits outside of the highest risk roads (though they mostly only control state highways, local councils control the rest). Their focus is going to be on making sure cars are going the speed limit (by increasing the number of cameras, and over time moving to average-speed cameras; where if you get between two points faster than is possible at the speed limit, you can be ticketed - even if you weren't speeding as you went past the camera).
Despite cars getting safer and safer, our rate of serious injury and death is getting worse. No matter the reason, if we can get people (actually) driving slower then this should start to improve.
NZ will kneejerk to things but not put the hard fixes in place that are needed, because that ruffles too many feathers.
Are you the same ballpeen hammer as on r/newzealand? Because that guy is a munter as well.
No need to resort to name calling and personal attacks. That’s being a dick by any standard.
The guy's all through the thread being a stubborn, pigheaded numpty, I'm not going to be nice to him.
Yes I am the same person. I am glad to see that you hate me so much. It helps to know who are the haters and what kind of people have decided I am the enemy.
Is this a rage bait article? That's pretty maddening.
In some ways I get it. Yes Maori and pacifica have and are treated worse than Nz Europeans and have had horrible treatment in the past.
However forcing them to the top of the list to rectify this will just cause more health issues for those that need it as priority.
Lots of surgeries won't go ahead of you can't remove extra weight. Especially bariatric surgery. You need to show you can lose he weight first. I'm not sure forcing a patient who cannot manage that to get the surgery will solve anything.
Interesting
I mean yeah - it’s likely rage bait. The parking bit in the video said “some main roads” “certain hours”. The presenter couldn’t decide if it was pounds or dollars. The pre-roll ad was for “live shopping”. NZ Herald is pretty garbage tier and this just panders to their expected audience.
On One News this evening they were very clear that other factors (such as how long they've been waiting, how sick the person is) are still more important than the patient's ethnicity.
The key thing is that clinical priority absolutely predominates the score anyone gets.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/06/19/pm-defends-use-of-equity-system-for-surgery-prioritisation/
None of this was mentioned in the NZ Herald piece. Barry Soper, the author, is a political hack who should not be trusted. He gives journalism a bad name and discredits the publication he writes for. I absolutely can't stand the guy and am disappointed in anyone who uncritically promotes his work.
Fuck me, I was just reading comments on reddit...
Yes, this policy is racist, by definition. In an ideal world, all citizens will be treated equally. In an ideal world, there will be no racism, everyone will have the same access and the same healthcare outcomes.
But we don't live in a perfect fucking world, do we? Jesus Christ, can people not understand this? Maori and Pacifica are systemically worse off in health outcomes than Pakeha. Per the report, even when all other factors are accounted for, they are worse off. So what's left? Race.
Let's assume that our goal for our society is the betterment of everyone. If that is the case (and it bloody should be!), then we have two options here. Solve the inequalities in society, or include race as one small metric. Obviously the first option is the best, right? But that takes a long time, and what do we do in the mean time? Let the inequality continue? Let Maori and Pacifica die at higher rates? That seems fucking cruel to me.
So what's left? The policy we have. It's just like having specific scholarships for Maori students. Yes, objectively, it is racist. But the goal is to reduce racism in society as a whole (through the lens of reducing the systemic educational inequality). Once that inequality has been eroded, then the race specific scholarships should go. But in the mean time, because I understand we don't live in a magical fairytale perfect world, I'm more than happy for those who are disadvantaged because of their skin color to get a small helping hand to try and remove some of this disadvantage. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would object to this.
I'm so incredibly sick of this mentality, and it needs to change.
Just because one group of people have been treated poorly in the past, doesn't mean the solution is to treat a different group badly in response. Tit for Tat isn't the way forward.
They are saying statistically some ethnicities are sicker than others and they should be looked at earlier. Nothing wrong with that.
“At a basic fundamental level, when a Māori patient hits that surgical wait list they’re already far behind their non-Māori counterparts."
Seems pretty straight-forward to me.
That sounds like utter bullshit to me, we should be trying to fix the underlying system, rather than countering perceived racism with more racism.
Do they though?
If the triage was being done correctly there would be no need for a change in policy. Obviously it's not and obviously it's hurting some ethnicities more than others.
So why not fix the underlying issue, rather than try and fix the racism with more racism?
Not being racist in the first place, rather than trying to even things out with a different type of racism?
Didn't you read my first comment?
I did read it. Are you saying we can solve this problem by simply eliminating racism from the planet?
I understand the thinking and idea on pushing this type of a thing, but naming it “Equity Adjustor Score” just screams that the system has been designed by some pencil pusher who doesn’t know the reality of what their proposal. With that being said, if it helps inequality in our medical care for this disaffected people grea.
There's no evidence that the inequities are caused by racist mis treatment. After reading the report this policy is based from it's seems the cause is obesity rates.
Probably don't want to admit lifestyle choices are such a common factor in poor health outcomes. Far easier to blame the white man.