Students stung by quota backlash

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Maori medical students admitted on an ethnic quota are suffering a backlash caused by National Party attacks on such schemes, says a leading health academic.

Professor Colin Mantell said yesterday that some students on the Maori and Pacific Admissions Scheme (Mapas) at Auckland University were experiencing criticism from classmates.

The university's head of Maori and Pacific health, Professor Mantell said the risk of such a reaction to National leader Don Brash's comments was Maori students dropping out.

Past and present Mapas students and Professor Mantell said Maori doctors were needed to help turn around poor Maori health statistics.

Professor Mantell, of Ngai Tahu, said some Maori patients were more likely to comply with treatment from a Maori doctor.

In 2000, there were only 198 Maori doctors, 2.3 per cent of the medical workforce, according to Medical Council records. A survey published this week showed that only 1.5 per cent of GPs are Maori, while 4.5 per cent are Chinese.

Dr Brash has threatened to refuse funding to universities that offer ethnic quotas. He has also suggested that the qualifications of Maori graduates from such schemes are inferior to those of non-quota students.

But he later said he meant that affirmative action programmes risked leading to the employment of inferior job applicants.

A fourth-year scheme student, Curtis Walker, said most of his classmates supported the aims of such affirmative action schemes.

But when asked about critics, he said: "We've had discussions with some people who have different viewpoints."

Mr Walker, 30, of Ngati Porou and Whakatohea descent and the grandson of Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker, hopes to become an anaesthetist and wants to practise in Rotorua. He entered medical school with a B+/A- average in a science degree.

"That's about the same as the general admission cut-off," he said.

Maori Mapas students are encouraged to learn Maori, to become involved in cultural activities and to visit schools to urge others to apply.

Mapas, a university initiative, dates from 1972 and started with three places a year. The scheme now operates in nursing and other health programmes as well as doctor training.

The dean of Otago University's Dunedin medical school, Professor John Campbell, asserts that its Maori and Pacific scheme is not a quota scheme, although it wanted to attract Maori and Pacific students.

Dunedin and Auckland also each reserve 20 places for rural applicants, in a Government bid to increase rural doctor numbers.

Dr Mantell said that like Mapas students, those on the rural quota could be admitted with slightly lower grades.

He acknowledged that the drop-out rate for Mapas students was nearly twice the 9 per cent of general entrants.

He said a separate scheme that had succeeded in increasing the number of Maori studying health, including medicine, was a first-year bridging programme.

But defending the lower entry grades for Maori, he said: "Do you want any Maori doctors or not?"

Ethnic quotas

AUCKLAND MEDICAL SCHOOL

* 143 students a year.

* Admits about 25 Maori and Pacific Island students a year on an ethnic-preference scheme.

* They must average at least B grades if entering from first year Health Sciences course.fls

* B+ for general entrants.

DUNEDIN MEDICAL SCHOOL

* 12 Maori students in this year's intake, but no formal quota.

* At least B average required irrespective of ethnicity.

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