An unhealthy disregard for rongoa
In 1999, after several years of discussion and debate, the Ministry of Health and Nga Ringa Whakahaere o Te Iwi Maori developed and published national standards for traditional Maori healing practice.
The work was in response to a 1995 recommendation to the minister of health by the National Advisory Committee on Core Health and Disability Services that: "Regional Health Authorities purchase aspects of Maori traditional healing, to be provided in conjunction with other primary health services, where there is reason to believe this will improve access to effective services for Maori and lead to better health outcomes."
Today's National Party has no room for more effective services for Maori, if they choose not to accept Pakeha cultural models of health delivery.
A Sunday Star Times hack job on rongoa claimed "the government spends more than a million dollars a year on traditional Maori therapies - and has no proof that they work."
Other alternative therapies, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, receive no public money, it says. Maybe, but the government will shell out for other therapies like chiropracty - maybe that's the test. When there is state funding, it is no longer "alternative".
Reporter Greg Meylan's authority that the therapies don't work? New Zealand Skeptics chairwoman Vicki Hyde, who on one hand admits studies had shown some of the traditional herbal remedies used plants containing active ingredients, and in the next breath "questioned whether public money should be spent on therapies which were probably effective only because of the placebo effect".
So what are they: active compounds or placebos? Are the Skeptics saying health is a chemistry experiment? That is a drug company line, not one the medical establishment would accept any longer.
Not to worry though, National's health spokesman Tony Ryall has the cure.
"There's nothing wrong with alternative therapies but the taxpayer shouldn't be expected to foot the bill," Ryall said.
He said his party worked on the principle that medicine should be proven and that policies should be colour-blind.
Actually, his party brought in this funding, obviously convinced the treatments helped some people.
It took years of study and debate to win acceptance in professional and policymaking circles that medicine was not colour blind, and culture influences health. Politicians pandering to prejudice and shallow reporting could roll back those hard won gains.
As for the costs, $1.3 million a year among 12 Maori health providers - a pittance in the wider scheme of health spending. A major hospital probably spends that every year on latex gloves.
The work was in response to a 1995 recommendation to the minister of health by the National Advisory Committee on Core Health and Disability Services that: "Regional Health Authorities purchase aspects of Maori traditional healing, to be provided in conjunction with other primary health services, where there is reason to believe this will improve access to effective services for Maori and lead to better health outcomes."
Today's National Party has no room for more effective services for Maori, if they choose not to accept Pakeha cultural models of health delivery.
A Sunday Star Times hack job on rongoa claimed "the government spends more than a million dollars a year on traditional Maori therapies - and has no proof that they work."
Other alternative therapies, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, receive no public money, it says. Maybe, but the government will shell out for other therapies like chiropracty - maybe that's the test. When there is state funding, it is no longer "alternative".
Reporter Greg Meylan's authority that the therapies don't work? New Zealand Skeptics chairwoman Vicki Hyde, who on one hand admits studies had shown some of the traditional herbal remedies used plants containing active ingredients, and in the next breath "questioned whether public money should be spent on therapies which were probably effective only because of the placebo effect".
So what are they: active compounds or placebos? Are the Skeptics saying health is a chemistry experiment? That is a drug company line, not one the medical establishment would accept any longer.
Not to worry though, National's health spokesman Tony Ryall has the cure.
"There's nothing wrong with alternative therapies but the taxpayer shouldn't be expected to foot the bill," Ryall said.
He said his party worked on the principle that medicine should be proven and that policies should be colour-blind.
Actually, his party brought in this funding, obviously convinced the treatments helped some people.
It took years of study and debate to win acceptance in professional and policymaking circles that medicine was not colour blind, and culture influences health. Politicians pandering to prejudice and shallow reporting could roll back those hard won gains.
As for the costs, $1.3 million a year among 12 Maori health providers - a pittance in the wider scheme of health spending. A major hospital probably spends that every year on latex gloves.