Maoris missing out on surgery: specialist

Press, 30 November 1987, Page 21

Maoris missing out on surgery: specialist

PA Dunedin Figures show that Maori people are not getting their fair share of coronary artery surgery in New Zealand, a specialist told a Medical Research Council symposium in Dunedin. Dr Era Pomare, professor of medicine at the Wellington School of Medicine, said that in 1983, of 822 coronary artery by-pass operations, only 10 were for Maori patients. Only 14 Maori patients were among the 825 operated on in 1984, he said. “There would appear to be a serious discrepancy here,” he said. “Maori people are apparently not receiving a fair share of an expensive health resource ... yet suffer excessively from coronary artery disease. "Is this an example of a gross inequity whereby Maori people are not

being offered potentially life-saving surgery, or could. it be that Maori people have a fear of such surgery or find it culturally repugnant?”

Dr Pomare said that it had been generally felt within the Maori community that socioeconomic and self-esteem factors were the most important reasons why Maoris experienced a greater degree of illhealth than did nonMaoris.

He said that a study in 1984, however, showed that only 20 per cent of the difference in mortality could be attributed to socio-economic factors. “There is no doubt that cultural barriers do hold back Maori people from making best use of available health-care services,” Dr Pomare said. "Many Maori people, particularly the elderly and those from rural

areas, tend to associate hospitals with death, and it is often very difficult to persuade these people to be treated in hospital, let alone seek any treatment at all.

“Death and dying are highly personal and dignified parts of one’s life, and there is no substitute to spending this time at home with the comfort and strength of the whanau and whananga.

“Most Maori people too have heard first hand of examples of gross cultural insensitivity in our hospitals such as the placing of food and urine close together, disposing of bodily parts in rubbish bags, and banishing friends, relatives or even a tohunga from the bedside of the sick.”

Dr Pomare made a plea for more research into the particular health needs of minority groups.