It is an indictment of how far we have to go as a nation while watching how the addition of ethnicity in surgery waiting lists have been manufactured into an example of apartheid by the political right.
The addition of ethnicity as a factor in getting public surgeries is not reverse racism, it is a symptom of a public health system so dangerously underfunded that it has been forced to add ethnicity as a determinate in health dollars because the outcomes for Māori and Pacifica and people living in rural areas and those who are poor are so bad, they need extra help just getting into the waiting list.
We have dangerously underfunded public health for decades and these new determinants as to who gets surgery is a response to that.
Painting the addition of ethnicity to surgical wait lists as some type of ‘Māorification’ of public health is offensive and grotesquely stupid.
If we had a fully funded public health system with appropriate cultural outreach and community based services we wouldn’t need to add these determinants as to who gets surgery, which is a revelation in itself, but watching Māori health become a political football by ACT and National under the guise of fighting racism is an ugly fallacy that does a disservice to our political debate.
We learn everything about white privilege. European society and America was billed and white privilege. And white privilege is white supremacists. pic.twitter.com/0kw0URdHYx
— Don Salmon (@dijoni) June 21, 2023
First published on Waatea News.
Politicians interfering in the clinical decision making of highly trained surgeons upon whose skill good outcomes depend, is dangerous. The politicians aren’t the people on call, ever, nor are they likely to be called out of bed at 2am in emergencies as surgeons are. Nor do they engage with stressed-out patients and whanau without a team of tax-payer funded advisors and pr people telling them what to say. Next they’ll be trying to manipulate court proceedings, or control what the media reports to the people.
Snow White: “Next they’ll be trying to manipulate court proceedings, or control what the media reports to the people.”
No! They’d never do THAT. Would they….?
Agree SW
Social cohesion and social capital are factors that bridge the structural and intermediary determinants of health. They describe the willingness of people living in a community to make sacrifices and to cooperate with each other for the wider benefit. New Zealanders are severely lacking in this area, evidenced by the neoliberal policies we’ve let permeate every aspect of our lives. We don’t give a shit about anyone but ourselves. We think of everything as a pie – if someone gets something, we’ll get less, and we only want ourselves and people we personally think are deserving to get anything for free. I’m just as guilty. I think politicians, landlords and anyone making money and living lavishly at the expense of someone else is revolting, and those people do not deserve free healthcare or education off the backs of the precariat. But realistically, right-wingers are clearly the ones that need those things most. Right-wingers are ignorant, self-absorbed and racist – all things that can be cured with adequate and appropriate education and mental health care.
Nurse Alice: “We don’t give a shit about anyone but ourselves. We think of everything as a pie – if someone gets something, we’ll get less, and we only want ourselves and people we personally think are deserving to get anything for free.”
And this is the way you think, is it? Tsk tsk…..such solipsism! I’m an old lefty: I don’t think that way at all. But if other people believe that what you’re saying here exemplifies leftist thinking, I’m going to have to abandon the left: I certainly don’t want to be tarred with that brush.
I believe the push back against corporatism and capital hoarding is the reference point Nurse Alice is railing against and I agree with her. Greed and one upmanship is the shallow existence and delusion we find ourselves in and only a “re-education” and “mental health adjustment” will get us out of it. I’m backing an economic meltdown to get us there faster than any marxist authoritarian will.
Actually, based on my experience I disagree with you Jason. One of my work colleagues who is Dutch and has been living here about four years got treatment before I did despite me presenting with the same health problem as him two years ago, when he was trying to get citizenship. He has been here for a short time but got referred by his GP and got his scan and diagnosed promptly. I have just had the same treatment two weeks ago and I had to fight and demand to get what he got. I was born here I have paid my taxes.
cip: just the luck of the draw. We can all see discrimination on the basis of skin colour if we look for it. Even when it doesn’t exist.
what the fuck? it effing exists alright or we wouldn’t be getting all uppity over a bit of preferential treatment for those that need it. We can’t have any of that – non non – it makes us look bad. We might have to face up to our bias and our total fucking ignorance.
Dr doom: “…it effing exists alright or we wouldn’t be getting all uppity over a bit of preferential treatment for those that need it.”
Are you accusing contemporary health workers of discriminating in favour of white people? Have you been in a hospital lately? Last time I was, quite recently, it was a struggle to find any decision-makers who were actually white. Same went for the patients: overwhelmingly Maori and Pacific people.
It’d be a peculiar thing, were (mostly non-white) health professionals discriminating against the (mostly non-white) patients right there in the hospital.
Professionals make decisions based on clinical need. And that’s as it should be.
Have a look at what Peter Davis says about it:
https://peterdavisnz.com/2023/06/25/using-ethnicity-to-decide-hospital-waitlists-doesnt-solve-the-real-issues/
In any event, skin colour is an extrinsic characteristic only: it has no influence on health status, one way or the other.
Yep
Good call.
Dr doom: “…it effing exists alright or we wouldn’t be getting all uppity over a bit of preferential treatment for those that need it.”
Are you accusing contemporary health workers of discriminating in favour of white people? Have you been in a hospital lately? Last time I was, quite recently, it was a struggle to find any decision-makers who were actually white. Same went for the patients: overwhelmingly Maori and Pacific people.
It’d be a peculiar thing, were (mostly non-white) health professionals discriminating against the (mostly non-white) patients right there in the hospital.
Professionals make decisions based on clinical need. And that’s as it should be.
Have a look at what Peter Davis says about it:
https://peterdavisnz.com/2023/06/25/using-ethnicity-to-decide-hospital-waitlists-doesnt-solve-the-real-issues/
In any event, skin colour is an extrinsic characteristic only: it has no influence on health status, one way or the other.
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