New Zealand’s National and ACT parties have decried the Labour government for promoting racial discrimination after it was revealed that surgery waitlists in Auckland take ethnicity into consideration when prioritising healthcare.
National’s health spokesperson, Dr Shane Reti, has called on the government to drop the ethnicity requirements “immediately.”
“While there has been historical inequity that has disadvantaged Maori and Pasifika people, the idea that any government would deliberately rank ethnicities for priority for surgery is offensive, wrong and should halt immediately,” he said.
Reti said rather than simply disadvantaging other ethnic groups, Maori and Pasifika health is better addressed through housing, education, and lowering the cost of living….