The Whanganui District Health Board is looking at ways to increase its Maori staff numbers.
At the board meeting on February 3, board members and management discussed how they could increase the number of Maori staff which currently sits at 11.2 per cent of the 1093 staff employed by the DHB.
A board member expressed concern that this proportion did not reflect the 26.5 per cent Maori population within the Whanganui region.
Director of Maori Health Rowena Kui said there had been some increase in the numbers of Maori staff but this increase had recently stagnated.
"While we have increased the number over the past five years, the increase has been slower over the past two years," she said.