Rita Panahi: Woke healthcare a new step in New Zealand’s new-age apartheid

New Zealand medical professionals being advised to consider ethnicities when determining if someone will receive priority care is racism, plain and simple.

New Zealand’s embrace of new-age apartheid is going as well as you would expect.

The latest race division in the once harmonious country sees medical professionals being advised to consider whether the patient is Maori or Pacific Islander when determining if they’ll receive priority care.

The New Zealand Herald reports: “Auckland surgeons are now required to consider a patient’s ethnicity alongside other factors when deciding who should get an operation first. Several surgeons say they are upset by the policy, which was introduced in Auckland in February and gave priority to Māori and Pacific Island patients — on the grounds that they have historically had unequal access to healthcare”.

But the racially charged environment in the country sees medical professionals reluctant to speak on the record against these racist policies. Several have spoken to media on the condition of anonymity with one surgeon calling the new measures “indefensible” and another saying they were “disgusted” by the racial rankings.

“It’s ethically challenging to treat anyone based on race, it’s their medical condition that must establish the urgency of the treatment,” the surgeon told the New Zealand Herald.

“There’s no place for elitism in medicine and the medical fraternity in this country is disturbed by these developments.”

You can call it reverse discrimination, affirmative action or equity but prioritising healthcare based on ethnicity is just racism, plain and simple.

But Health Minister Ayesha Verrall is unapologetic about giving certain ethnicities priority care.

“The reformed health system seeks to address inequities for Māori and Pacific people who historically have a lower life expectancy and poor health outcomes,” she said. Of course the notion of personal responsibility is utterly abhorrent to the race-obsessed who want to enforce equity, not equality.

Perhaps one of the reasons why certain communities have poor health outcomes is due to the fact that some have enormous rates of obesity and morbid obesity.

According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Health “71.3 per cent of Pacific, 50.8 per cent of Māori, 31.9 per cent of European/Other and 18.5 per cent of Asian adults obese.”

But of course tackling that issue may be deemed racially insensitive so instead Te Whatu Ora (the public health agency that replaced district health boards in NZ last year) have given advice to medical professionals that waiting times and priority medical care should differ according to racial categories.

You can call it reverse discrimination, affirmative action or equity but it’s just racism, plain and simple.