Te Aka Whai Ora gone - Whanganui Māori health provider has to return all contracts

Te Oranganui chief executive Wheturangi Walsh-Tapiata says there is "concern and sadness" over the loss of Te Aka Whai Ora. Photo/ Bevan Conley

Whanganui Māori health provider Te Oranganui spent the past 18 months transferring contracts from Te Whatu Ora to Te Aka Whai Ora - now it will have to do the opposite.

Legislation to disestablish the Māori Health Authority - Te Aka Whai Ora - was moved in Parliament on Wednesday.

“My dream for the health system isn’t about bureaucratic structures and endless plans and reports; it’s about identifying need and responding to it,” Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti said.

Te Oranganui chief executive Wheturangi Walsh-Tapiata said she felt “concern and sadness” about the unclear path Te Aka Whai Ora’s absence left for the future.

Over the past 18 months, Te Oranganui moved all of its health contracts over to Te Aka Whai Ora, but these will now be returned to Te Whatu Ora.

“Of course, that is requiring quite a bit of work.”

Te Oranganui has 185 staff members. Smaller organisations would struggle with the work involved to reassign contracts, Walsh-Tapiata said.

Under Te Aka Whai Ora, there was a relationship manager who made quarterly visits to Te Oranganui, alongside monthly meetings with the National Māori Hauora Organisation Forum.

The “regular contact” built strong relationships.

“Previously our point of contact was an email, no person at the other end.”

It also provided “a voice” when there was not always representation at a national level, she said.

Whanganui Regional Health Network chief executive Judith Macdonald said she was a little bit shocked at some of the “less -than-transparent approaches being taken”.

“There may well have been some sort of work up to this, but it certainly hasn’t come on my radar, and it doesn’t feel very transparent to me.”

She said the loss of a strong, strategic Māori voice would be felt very keenly.

“Depending on what the resource transfer looks like, it may well be that Te Aka Whai Ora people are transferred into Te Whatu Ora anyway, but the risk for the system is that there would be a loss of resource and leadership.”

Reti said local circumstances required local solutions rather than national bureaucracies.

“One of the fundamental differences in approach to health is enabled by this legislation: this Government believes that decisions should be made closer to the community, to the home and the hapū.”

Macdonald said so far, it did not seem like the move would directly affect patients as there had been no indicators that contracts would disappear.

Walsh-Tapiata said she could not “hand-on-heart believe” processes would be similar under the new system.

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.