review finds
“To put it simply, there is no point solving someone’s transport barrier by giving them a taxi chit if the taxi drives them towards a racist health service,” Dr Emma Espiner writes.
It’s the line in her paper in Friday's New Zealand Medical Journal a reviewer advised her to take out, because it didn’t sound “scholarly”.
But the former broadcaster, now a house officer at Middlemore Hospital, didn’t become a doctor to pontificate, she did so to make sure people understand why Māori have “persistently s..... outcomes across every imaginable health indicator”, and help to fix it.
Espiner (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) led researchers from Middlemore and the University of Auckland in a review on access to hospital services and found Māori experienced hostility, racism, poor communication, practical barriers to accessing care, and roadblocks to community-based care, including feeling culturally unsafe.
Link to video and article: Hospital services for Māori 'hostile and racist', review finds | Stuff.co.nz
