Rangi McLean heads to Canada to showcase the Maōri model of care to indigenous peoples

Rangi McLean is globe-trotting spreading the Māori model of care to indigenous Canadians. Photo / Michael Craig

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Community advocate Rangi McLean is leading a Māori delegation to Canada to present the Māori experiences of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) to the indigenous peoples of that land.

McLean, the cultural adviser for Hapai Te Hauora - a tripartite Māori health and policy advocacy organisation owned by Waipareira, Tainui and Te Rūnanga of Ngāti Whātua - and one kaimahi from the Hapai Research team are attending the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors Congress in Vancouver, Canada, that starts tomorrow.

They will present the findings of a 18 month research project funded by Health Research New Zealand (HRC).

The team will present how whānau Māori have been impacted by alcohol and ways to identify a pathway forward to address the harms caused to every unborn child in Aotearoa.

"We will present how we utilise this to help our whānau," McLean said.

He said like iwi in Aotearoa, Canada has many tribes that still face the same issues and dilemmas as all indigenous people.

The conference is being hosted on the unseeded, traditional territories of the Coast Salish: the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in partnership with Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa (TeORA), the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP), the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association (AIDA), and the Medical Association for Indigenous People of Taiwan (MAIPT).

More than 300 physicians, residents, medical students, and other health advocates from throughout the Pacific are attending.

McLean said indigenous peoples around the world are keen to learn the Te Ao Māori view and ways it is viewed but, more importantly, how the approach looks after its people.

He said researcher Janell Dymus-Kurei will do most of the work.

"I'm there as our Pou Tikanga to ensure our practices are represented on an international stage through mihimihi and the karakia," McLean said with a laugh.

From Vancouver, he will fly to Winnipeg, then on to a town called Churchill for another conference - this time on men's mental health.

"This is another conference called by First Nations people," McLean said.

"I will be the cultural adviser for a group of Tane from Te Tai Tokerau, Hamilton and Tāmaki Makaurau.

"They invited us to utilise the Māori men's mental health model and see if it can be used for their men."