AUCKLAND SURGEONS MUST CONSIDER ETHNICITY

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Just saying ,..

 

Lots of people (through no fault of their own) live in Auckland. Today their sad plight suddenly got worse - the white and Asian people's, that is, not Maori or Pasifika. 

Because Pakeha and Asians will now take a back seat to Maori and Pasifika in the waiting lists for surgery. It's not just the state of your health, it's the colour of your skin which will help determine your priority for surgical procedures.

You have to hand it to Labour - could there be any better way to divide the nation (as per the socialist/communist playbook) than to give one colour of skin better healthcare opportunities than another? And to propagate the myth that everyone should have 'equitable outcomes? Vive la révolution!

New Zealand's health system contracted a terminal cancer in 1977, when so-called doctors began to kill their smallest, most innocent patients. This diktat on racist health services is but the latest evidence of that cancer metastatising.

Auckland surgeons are now being required to consider a patient’s ethnicity alongside other factors when deciding who should get an operation first.

Several surgeons say they are upset by the policy,

Oh what naughty surgeons! One fears they will be taught a lesson. 

which was introduced in Auckland in February and gave priority to Māori and Pacific Island patients - on the grounds that they have historically had unequal access to healthcare.

What unequal access was that? Did they show up to a doctor or hospital and get sidelined because they were brown? Really??? Where is the evidence for that? Yes, Maori and Pasifika are genetically disposed to diabetes, and diabetes untreated often leads to amputation so you could say they are more likely on those grounds to need surgery. But that does not mean they had 'unequal access to healthcare'. 

Health officials stress that ethnicity is just one of five factors considered in deciding when a person gets surgery, and that it is an important step in addressing poor health outcomes within Māori and Pacific populations.

Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand has introduced an Equity Adjustor Score, which aims to reduce inequity in the system by using an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), ethnicity, and deprivation level.

Watch out - the algorithms are coming to get you! What a mess of Orwell-speak.  'Te Whatu Ora ... Equity Adjustor Score', etc. Evidently George Orwell wasn't even trying. 

In the ethnicity category, Māori and Pasifika are top of the list, while European New Zealanders and other ethnicities, like Indian and Chinese, are lower-ranked.

The ACT Party's news release states that:

The waitlist equity adjuster tool gives a score, using a points system to give ratings based on five criteria. Clinical need - that should be obvious enough. Time they’ve waited already - that’s how most waitlists work Remote location - slightly odd but you can understand it’s harder for people who have to travel to a major centre compared with people who live next door to Auckland City Hospital, for example. Deprivation status - someone who is poorer goes up the queue. Ethnicity - if you’re Māori, or the healthcare system believes you are, or Pasifika, great. If you are European, Indian, Chinese or any other race, tough luck. The problem is the fifth criteria can override the first four. Someone who has waited ages, has great need, lives far from a major hospital, and has little money could be skipped over by a person who’s better off, because they have different ancestors. One irony is that the healthcare system would collapse tomorrow were it not for recent immigrants, many of them from exactly those backgrounds that are held back under the policy. Overall the policy is wrong, wrong, wrong, and must be stopped. The waitlist equity adjuster tool is just the latest example of Labour introducing racial profiling into healthcare,. There is eligibility for drugs funded by Pharmac. There is eligibility for Medical School training. There is eligibility for screening, and now there is surgical waitlists.

You have to hand it to this Labour Government. There's no better way to divide a nation (as prescribed by socialism/communism) than to give one sector of the population better health care than others according to the colour of their skin. Or their claim to a drop of so-called Maori blood, and maybe a moko or tatt thrown in as ballast.  

Some surgeons, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,

Given the NZ Medical Council's reputation for cancel culture  (https://thebfd.co.nz/2023/05/19/cancel-culture-is-alive-and-well/), you bet they spoke on condition of anonymity. 

said the new scoring tool was medically indefensible. They said patients should be prioritised on how sick they were, how urgently they needed treatment, and how long they had been waiting for it - not on their ethnicity.

One of the surgeons said he was “disgusted” by the new ranking system.

“It’s ethically challenging to treat anyone based on race, it’s their medical condition that must establish the urgency of the treatment,” the surgeon said.

“There’s no place for elitism in medicine and the medical fraternity in this country is disturbed by these developments.”

 

NZ's health system - cause or effect? 

 

A document on the equity adjustor which was leaked to Newstalk ZB shows two Māori patients, both aged 62 and who have been waiting more than a year, ranked above others on the list. A 36-year-old Middle Eastern patient who has been waiting almost two years has a much lower priority ranking.

An email by Te Whatu Ora business support manager Daniel Hayes in April said: “Hi team, Heads up. This is going to be the new criteria for outsourcing your patients going forward.

'Going forward.' Don't you just love it? Although come to think of it, given this Government's appalling ineptitude at Just About Everything, we might have been thinking Te Whatu Ora was going backward.  

'Just putting this on your radar now so that you can begin to line up patients accordingly. Over 200 days for Māori and Pacific patients. Over 250 days for all other patients.”

When contacted by ZB, Hayes said he would not comment until he had verified who he was speaking to. He did not return further requests for comment.

Rob Campbell opinion: It’s sickening how right-minded Kiwis react to poor Māori and Pasifika health outcomes

‘I would refuse to rank patients based on ethnicity’: National’s Dr Shane Reti blasts equity rule

Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said when it came to prioritising healthcare, there were important reasons why ethnicity was a factor.

She pointed to the Government-commissioned, independent review of the health system in 2018, which found the system did not serve everyone well and produced unequal outcomes, particularly for vulnerable populations.

“The reformed health system seeks to address inequities for Māori and Pacific people who historically have a lower life expectancy and poor health outcomes,” Verrall said.

Sir Collin Tukuitonga, a leading expert in Pasifika health, said Māori and Pasifika patients could be moved to the front of surgical lines due to the inequalities in the previous stages of the health system, such as the referral process.

“Māori and Pacific people tend to linger on the referral list...

Possibly because Maori and Pacific people are less inclined to pester. Not so likely to get on the blower and give their GP a rark-up. But that's not an 'inequality in the health system'.

and inevitably, I think people will say that there’s also an institutional bias, possibly a racism that doesn’t put them where they need to be in order to get the surgery,” Tukuitonga said.

Given the sick state of our health system, it's self-assertiveness that puts people where they need to be for surgery. And health insurance which Maori and Pasifika are less likely to have.  

“The referral pathways are not that straightforward.”

Tukuitonga specifically used the example of bariatric surgery, which helps to aid those with morbid obesity, which he said was “much more” prevalent in Māori and Pacific communities than in Pākehā. He said this could be another reason why these patients are being brought forward in the waiting times.

New academic research across rural New Zealand has found Māori and low income people are likely to be more obese because they do not have access to exercise facilities such as gyms, ExerciseNZ chief executive Richard Beddie says. 

Does it really take academics to work that out? And why should Pakeha low income people in rural NZ be less likely to be obese? And in rural NZ there are surely more exercise facilities such as vege gardens and beautiful beaches and scenery for swimming and walking - in fresh air and quiet rather than noise with BO  ... 

“For most of the surgical interventions, Māori and the Pacific people don’t get to get the rates of interventions that might be warranted given their conditions,” Tukuitonga said.

Well yes, Sir Collin, that does seem to be the problem.   

He added: “In other words, it’s not acceptable to have a group in the population where obesity is a major problem and yet they’re not getting the physical intervention that they require.”

It's the reality, Sir Collin, so we have to accept it. And it would seem the physical intervention they require should happen much earlier and in a completely different form. 

Te Whatu Ora interim lead for Te Toka Tumai (the former Auckland District Health Board) Dr Mike Shepherd said the causes of health inequity were complex and required a sophisticated solution to reduce inequitable outcomes that already existed.

'Health inequity' is yet to be established. You can't establish the causes of something not yet proved to exist, much less find a solution. 

“It’s important to note that ethnicity is not the only element considered in the scoring system,” Shepherd said.

He said the equity adjuster waitlist score

Eat your heart out George Orwell. 

helps reduce barriers and inequities in the healthcare system,

which have not been proven to exist  

to ensure that people have equitable outcomes, regardless of their ethnicity, socio-economic circumstances or where they live.

Oh grow up, Dr Shepherd. It's impossible 'to ensure that people have equitable outcomes'. Do you not realise yet that people are not born equal and beyond giving them equal opportunity you cannot make them equal?   

“These adjustments are based on evidence which shows these groups often have inequitable health outcomes, which often begin at the start of their healthcare journey.

He means at birth but he's learned how to obfuscate.  

Early analysis shows the tool is effective at helping to eliminate the existing inequities.”

We're guessing 'the tool' is the equity adjuster waitlist score.

Shepherd said the tool was rolled out in Auckland in February and, due to positive evidence that it is helping to eliminate inequities in the healthcare system, it is now being rolled out across the other northern region districts.

Before the Health New Zealand reforms came into force last year, around half of the then District Health Boards had considered or committed to prioritising Māori and Pacific patients for some elective surgeries.

A number of studies and reports show Māori and Pacific people are less likely to be referred or accepted for treatment in the first place, and once in the system generally get less treatment.

Could it possibly mean that Maori and Pacific people are not so concerned about their health than European or Asian people? That they have different priorities? That hanging on to life like grim death isn't their biggest concern? 

The Auckland District Health Board’s own data show Māori and Pacific patients take longer after referral to have a procedure confirmed.https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/auckland-surgeons-must-now-consider-ethnicity-in-prioritising-patients-for-operations-some-are-not-happy/ONGOC263IFCF3LADSRR6VTGQWE/

HAVE YOU BEEN WAITING LONG FOR SURGERY? TELL US YOUR STORY

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