Content area
Full text
Abstract
In early 2004, Dr Don Brash, leader of the National Party (New Zealand's opposition political party), gave a speech to a community group regarding what he perceived to be the preferential treatment of Maori in health and education policies. This viewpoint article is written by a group of concerned medical students at Otago University. It argues that epidemiological data provide strong support for specifically addressing Maori health need, whilst the Treaty of Waitangi represents a contractual obligation on behalf of the New Zealand Government to ensure equity of outcome for Maori. Underpinning both the epidemiological and legal arguments, are ethical principles. The central tenets of medicine (ie, to reduce suffering, and to improve and prolong the quality and length of life) should provide a strong driving force to address these inequalities.
On the 27th of January, 2004, Don Brash addressed the Orewa Rotary Club on the subject of race relations, and what he perceived to be the preferential treatment of Maori in health and education.1 According to the New Zealand Herald newspaper, 'The Orewa Speech' has had a 'seismic impact on the political landscape' in New Zealand.2
The National Party's meteoric rise in the polls3 suggests that their new leader has indeed struck a chord with the New Zealand public.
Brash established his stanee early in the speech by stating:
'We are one country with many peoples, not simply a society of Maori and Pakeha where the minority has a birthright to the upper hand'.
He later claimed:
'In both education and healthcare, government funding is now influenced not just by need-as it should be-but also by the ethnicity of the recipient.1
This viewpoint article seeks to evaluate, from the perspective of health, whether specifically addressing the needs of Maori is justified-or whether (as Brash suggests) such an approach cannot be justified. One way to determine the legitimacy of a targeted strategy, is to prove that Maori have a need in excess of other societal groups. With regard to need, mortality and life expectancy data are arguably the most frequently used measures of health status. This is due, in part, to their accessibility; certification of death being a legal requirement in most industrialised countries.4 In New Zealand, the most recent life expectancy figures...