NZ Prioritising Maori, Pacific Island Patients in the Name of ‘Equity’

Family members visit Intensive Care patient at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, Australia, on March 12, 2007. Ian Waldie/Getty Images

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.”