There is no place for race based health care in this country....

[Lilith7]

I don't see why people are whinging about this, apart from ignorance or spite. It has been known for many years that many non european peoples have less resistance to european diseases. One reason is that they are often descended from smaller remote populations, which were too small to support diseases endemic in larger european populations - those of us with european ancestors descend from populations which lived with tuberculosis, measles, malaria, influenza, smallpox, and many other ills. Maori avoided these, by living remote from europeans. When we came among them, we brought our plagues with us, and since they had no exposure to these diseases, they had little innate immunity. By providing support through Maori specific initiatives, we are enabling them to have the same sort of protection from disease that european people enjoy.

Perhaps so to a point, but the gene pool has mixed in with europeans much more over the last 100 years.
In the early days, measles and chickenpox wiped out many maori, but as you can see today, those diseases are no where near as deadly to that demographic, since their ancestors had likely survived it, so a stronger gene pool survived through the years.

Most people are vaccinated for measles these days anyway, but less so for chickenpox.
Other issues also face the same demographic such as diabetes, and heart disease, all things that can be avoided by lifestyle choices.

Other health issues among the population are down to poor living conditions, these are all things that can be addressed by other means and is not really a health issue, but a welfare issue.

Winston peters doesnt like it how Maori "put their own people down" and I agree with him, you always hear on the TV when maori leaders go on about how disadvantaged they are, etc, etc.

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"No place for race based health care in this country."

That is precisely what we've had until now; changing that is an excellent idea & long overdue.

It actually goes deeper than that, we shouldnt have any race based politics or policies at all.

Nothing wrong with targeting public health campaigns towards a group, but it goes too far when you can get special benefits. Just give the flu shot to everyone free at the same age, im sure there are lots of 55s out there that have health issues regardless of race.

Now we are seeing reverse racism, and it is widely endorsed.

What point is there for having the "Maori All blacks" if you started a Pakeha all blacks team you would be quickly shut down as racist, and would be borderline hate crime, much like the springboks in South Africa in the 80s.

And yet, the statistics show a very different outcome for Maori in the health system; invariably a far worse one. And that is what's being addressed - finally.
There's no such thing as 'reverse racism' but the silly term is often used by racists & those who don't want improvements for Maori.