Your link echos exactly what I'm talking about. This is a statement from one of the hospitals.
“Capital & Coast and Hutt Valley DHBs are prioritising Māori and Pacific in our surgical scheduling processes. The patients’ ethnicity is taken into account along with their level of clinical urgency and the number of days they have been on the waiting list within a given clinical priority band. It is unlikely that any other patients will be significantly affected as a result of this work.” - media statement, May 2020
The last statement "it is unlikely any other patient will be significantly affected" is laughable.
The goal is to affect patients - prioritize a specific ethnic group, so either the change does nothing (then why do it at all?), or it prioritizes certain patients (and if it does it must deprioritize others).
You appear to have missed the bit about clinical need again. It’s in your quote.
It’s a points system, with something like 2 out of the 100 points relating to ethnicity, per the links.
No one is penalised for their race. Groups are promoted due to their race. This isn’t the same thing, though from the perspective of your ‘score 70’ patient, I do agree that it’s splitting hairs.
What’s important to the scenario though, is that at present, Māori and Pacific Islanders get seen less by specialists, less clinical tests, less treatment and then worse outcomes. They die several years earlier than their Pakeha peers. It’s incredible that this is acceptable, but here we are.
Māori and Pacific Islanders are being discriminated against by the system, it’s just that their race demerit points are not nicely documented.
So getting promoted on lists by a couple of points is an attempt to even it up via forced functionality.
I don’t think you and I are ever going to agree that positive description should be used.
Other things are being tried. Part of the massive and overdue restructuring that’s underway to our healthcare system is going to be interesting to watch. “In each local community, partnerships between Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards, Health New Zealand’s regional and district teams, and the wider community will ensure Māori voices are heard, embedded in plans and services, and that health equity for Māori is non-negotiable.” [1].
We will see how it goes. The structural changes so far have been rather painful and seem clumsy when viewed from my adjacent seat.
No one is penalised for their race. Groups are promoted due to their race
Promoting one group by very definition penalized other groups. You can't have one without the other.
What’s important to the scenario though, is that at present, Māori and Pacific Islanders get seen less by specialists, less clinical tests, less treatment and then worse outcomes. They die several years earlier than their Pakeha peers. It’s incredible that this is acceptable, but here we are.
That's fine, then fix those issues. It's bizarre that a lack of medical care in one group is solved by reducing access to medical care in other groups.
We aren't going to agree on this.
As I said, that's been attempted for decades, and zero progress has been made over decades with billion spent. If you have an idea that hasn't been tried or isn't being tried, Im sure they'd love to hear it.
Clinical need comes first.
My above links may help you.