Health contracts narrow, says Turia

By AUDREY YOUNG

Maori needed to design their own models of development in the health sector and take a broader approach to the "prescriptive" contracts now let, says Tariana Turia.

"Our people's health and well-being is tied to many things and not least of it to the foreshore and seabed," she said yesterday in her capacity as Associate Minister of Health at a conference of Maori health providers in Napier.

"We have to see our health in much broader terms than what we are actually practising and I'm really concerned that all we do is buy into the prescriptive nature of the contracts that we get purely to get money."

She told the health workers she did not want to criticise their work.

But most of the primary health care they provided simply reflected what was happening in mainstream health.

In notes prepared for the speech, Mrs Turia said that of the 21 district health boards, 16 had formalised relationships with iwi and Maori organisations "to enable tangata whenua to participate in developing strategies to improve Maori health" and the others were working towards it.

"We must be careful not to duplicate the bureaucratic approach of mainstream agencies. We need to design our own models of development."

She questioned the need for office and paid staff.

"We do not want our services tied up in red tape - but we don't want our people exposed to unfair criticism."

Commenting through a spokesman after her speech, she said: "The Government is looking for bottom-up solutions from all communities, not proscribed contractual arrangements put together by bureaucrats.

"We want people in communities to find solutions for themselves as to negotiating funding for those solutions based on outcomes, not outputs.

"In other words we are looking to measure services in terms of quality, not just in terms of numbers."


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