People “going to waste”

Press, 23 November 1976, Page 7

People “going to waste”

PA Auckland Medical people trained in the Pacific Islands were “going to waste” in New Zealand because their qualifications were not acceptable to the authorities. This is the view of Mr Leo Foliaki, a medical social worker at the Extramural Hospital at Epsom. Mr Foliaki trained as a doctor in Fiji and practised for 27 years before coming to New Zealand, where his qualifications were not recognised. “I know of Fiji-trained health inspectors who are now freezing workers in New Zealand because their qualifications were not of an acceptable standard,” Mr Foliaki told an Auckland University seminar for doctors and health social workers. “There are nurses who trained in their island hospitals in Niue, Tonga, and Samoa who were told when they arrived here that their qualifications equated only those of New Zealand-trained community nurses.

“There has been a lot of criticism about the deficiencies in health care for Pacific Islanders. Why not use these untapped resources to help our own people?” Mr Foliaki said. “Any lack of paper qualifications, in the eyes of New Zealand medical authorities, may be made up m the knowledge of our own culture.”

The chairman of the Pacific Islands Advisory Council (Mr V. AlailimaEteuati) said the solution to the problem might be the introduction of intensive programmes along the lines of teachers’ refresher courses.

He complained about the "old-tie. arrogance” in the [New Zealand medical profes-

sion which would not consider any other standards of training. Tied to this was the absolute absence of any Pacific Island social workers in the Social Welfare Department in Auckland. “It bugs and infuriates us,” he said, “because the pakehas see themselves as the most competent and proficient people to reach our own people.”