For over 40 years, Sir Mason Durie has been at the forefront of transforming Māori health, highly regarded for his Te Whare Tapa Whā model which focuses on facilitating wellness as an integral part of healthcare.
The establishment of a new independent Māori health authority, which Durie is helping to set up, is "a hugely important step" for Māori with implications far beyond the healthcare sector, he tells Julian Wilcox.
Sir Mason Durie Photo: RNZ / Leigh Marama McLachlan
Māori Health Authority CEO Riana Manuel
In July this year, Te Pae Ora healthy futures bill comes in to effect. This replaces the 20 District Health Boards with Health New Zealand - a new Crown organisation - to provide a national health… Audio
"In the end, rather than having dozens of Māori authorities, there might be an overarching taumata [governing body] which brings them all together and that taumata need not be part of the government structure.
"One of the problems we have at present is we have leaders in different sectors who don't often come together. And a start towards the taumata that I mentioned would be a much more collaborative approach between Māori health leaders, Māori education leaders, Māori leaders in social services, iwi… so that what we finish up with is something consistent across all sectors - a single strategy that is inclusive rather than divisive.
"At some point, someone has got to take a role of pulling our leadership together so that we can get an integrated co-ordinated and more useful approach to the problems that we've tended to deal with in a piecemeal fashion.
"I think our generation, although we can see the problems, we're very much linked into an old system. And creating a new system that is integrated and collaborative… is something I think the next generation will be able to achieve.
"They're much more secure and much more positive… we'll be able to sit in the background and offer advice but I think the bold initiatives are yet to come.'
Durie says the greatest development he's seen in Māori healthcare in recent decades is the rising number of Māori people now working in healthcare.
"In 1982, we counted up and had about 55 Māori doctors, now there's almost 55 graduating each year. So that's been a huge change. Now we've got a much more representative workforce. We've seen the same in nursing… in psychologists. The Māori health workforce has never been stronger than it is.
"If you put the whole Māori health workforce together, which includes doctors and nurses and chemists and physios… then you've got a powerful vehicle for change."
