New Zealand debates whether ethnicity should be a factor for surgery waitlists

Indigenous Māori and Pacific Island patients are given a higher priority on the list, pushing down white New Zealanders and other ethnicities. The idea is to balance out longstanding inequities in the publicly funded health system.

You don't "balance out" a picture on the wall that's crooked to the right ... by making it crooked to the left.

You balance it out by straightening it. By making it even. By making it level.

Race and ethnicity should play NO part whatsoever in something like this. Doesn't New Zealand believe in equality under the law?

what with this and the Voice in Oz.... they are setting out on a very rocky road..... dear oh dear!

You gotta be kidding me!

Literally killing whites in the name of "equity" or whatever it means these days.

Forwarding this article to Mr. Taylor right now

What is going on here? It should be medical need and NOTHING else.

Okay, maybe also whether you've ruined the same organ before.

Debating whether racism is OK?

Clinical need and waiting time should be the only factors considered. Anything else is just discrimination.

Hey Johnathan Prin!! Read this article it proves my point!! The system is in place no matter where you go not far from black and white Eh!!!! Now your history!!!

I hate Tories so I'm hardly right wing, but this is wrong and I would be furious if it had been applied to me or my family. Racial prejudice is wrong. Leaving people in pain because they are white is going to create the same anger as it would if they were left in pain because they were not. Expect court action for compensation and a very angry backlash. Those who were responsible for this should be fired. We should be excluding racial prejudice, not legitimising it.

It turns out that in some parts of Auckland, the country's largest city at 1.4 million people, clinicians have been using an algorithm to adjust where patients sit on elective surgery waitlists. Clinical need remains the top factor, but the algorithm also takes into account how long patients have been on the waitlist, where they live, their financial circumstances, and their ethnicity.

Indigenous Māori and Pacific Island patients are given a higher priority on the list, pushing down white New Zealanders and other ethnicities. The idea is to balance out longstanding inequities in the publicly funded health system.

It seems fair. If a population is already disadvantaged because of history, balancing that in modern day outcomes is fair and just.