Barry Soper: National rollout of surgery race-ranking seems on ice as Hipkins, Verrall not on same page

OPINION

It seems the Government has put on ice plans for a nationwide rollout of the equity adjuster scores being given to Auckland patients on waiting lists for surgery because of the publicity given to them by the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB.

Since the story broke on Monday the Prime Minister has spoken to Health Minister Ayesha Verrall about the lists having one of its weightings devoted to ethnicity, putting Māori and Pacific patients at the top.

Chris Hipkins said he doesn’t want to replace what he says is one form of discrimination in the clogged-up hospital system with another.

The Government’s intention was clearly to roll out the adjuster scores nationwide with Verrall saying so in a written Parliamentary question from National’s health spokesman Shane Reti.

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She said: “I am advised that a waitlist prioritisation tool has been developed and is currently being implemented across the Northern Region before a national rollout”.

In fact, the scores aren’t being used in Northland and are at this stage confined to Auckland and Middlemore Hospitals.

It seems Hipkins was left in the dark about it though.

On Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast show yesterday he said: “My understanding is there’s two DHBs, I think it was Auckland and Northland, certainly from the conversation I’ve had with the Minister of Health there’s no intention to roll this out nationally.”

To reporters at Parliament who told him of Verrall’s reply to Reti’s question, Hipkins said they’d have to ask Verrall.

In Parliament, Reti did just that asking her who was correct: the Prime Minister saying there would be no rollout or her replying to his written question saying it was her intention.

Verrall said she’s been asked by Hipkins to find out whether the scoring system was being used in the way it was intended and there’ll be no roll-out until she’s satisfied that it is.

Hipkins, a former health minister, told reporters: “There is evidence that Māori and Pacific patients, rural people, people from low-income families have been waiting longer in that two-year plus waitlist category and that isn’t acceptable and the health system should do something about that”.

However, he said he didn’t want to see one form of discrimination replaced by another.

But on the leaked equity adjuster score waiting list, no one has been waiting for more than two years - the longest wait is for a Middle Eastern patient who’s been waiting 644 days for surgery, but won’t be seen anytime soon because he has a low score.

The two Māori on it, both with the highest score by far, therefore likely to be operated on first, have been waiting 441 and 518 days, a shorter wait than a number of others with lower scores.

One of the Māori patients has been waiting for exactly the same time as an Indian but with a score of 1116 compared to the Indian’s 744 will go under the knife much sooner.

Former Auckland District Health Board member for eight years Doug Armstrong said giving priority on waiting lists was discussed as far back as 2020 and then on and off until it was disbanded last August.

Armstrong doesn’t like the equity adjuster scores giving priority on ethnic grounds. He would expect clinicians to make their decisions based on need and nothing else. He said there could be the odd exception, like if an elderly Pākehā man was due for the same surgery as a young Māori, expected to provide for his four children, then the latter would get priority and vice versa.

He said circumstance should be a priority and not race.

Armstrong said the ethnic rule doesn’t send the right message and has no place in this country.