Rationing Māori Life and Well-Being - Who Decides and How?
Panel: Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Associate Professor Krushil Wātene and Dr Donna Cormack with Professor Tahu Kukutai (Facilitator)
To attend this live Webinar you must REGISTER HERE
Background research and discussion videos include a presentation by Dr Moana Jackson
Aotearoa New Zealand has to date avoided the extreme consequences of COVID-19, which internationally has uncovered how health systems and societies differentially value people and groups. However inequality exists in NZ and many of these values and mechanisms still operate not only within our society and but also within our health system. This webinar will investigate, expose and discuss the ethics of rationing health care in a racialised society - critiquing the use of prioritisation tools in medicine about who gets access to technology like ventilators and ICU.
By doing so it will highlight the health inequities that already exist but which would be exacerbated by COVID-19, and bring into the light issues of relevance to government, health professionals, researchers and communities across Aotearoa.
Do not miss out. Register for this exciting webinar here!
Moana Jackson: Keynote at He Manawa Whenua Indigenous Research Conference 2013
COVID‐19: we must not forget about Indigenous health and equity: Link to article here
PRESENTERS
Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) - Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Waikato
Māori draw on a history of survivance in a time of crisis and in this time of COVID-19. My talk reflects on what this says about Māori in terms of how we have mobilised our efforts during the lockdown under COVID-19. It also addresses the failure of the Treaty principle of partnership to be honoured and utilised during this crisis when the Government defaults to a mainstream, we know best, lack of trust relationship to Māori. The talk reflects on the lost opportunities to use Māori leadership, Māori health expertise and Māori service provision during the first weeks of lockdown. It ends with questions about what we need to consider and implement the next time. Link to Linda's video below and here
Krushil Wātene (Ngāti Manu, Te Hikutu, Ngāti Whātua o Orākei, Tonga) - School of Humanities, Massey University
Ideas about fairness pervade our lives and shape the society in which we live. One prominent view is that society is a collection of individuals working together for mutual advantage. On this view, the value of our lives is largely determined by how useful we are. Such a view often ignores the full range of ways in which we (individually and collectively) enrich each other’s lives. For instance, such views often ignore the importance of relationships in their own right, the importance of love, and the importance of acknowledging our own needs and vulnerabilities throughout our lives. Critical discussion and reflection about fairness within the context of social justice should be centrally about equity across the full range of well-being and justice dimensions -- not least in the distribution of health. To have these discussions, we need to be honest about the role of history in shaping disadvantage for some and privilege for others. We need to be clear about how we begin to enhance our relationships with each other. We need to be courageous enough to re-imagine our lives together. Most importantly, we need to rethink basic assumptions that we take for granted. Instead, we need theories and policies that provide us with ways of equitably navigating the challenges that we face, rather than those that create or reinforce them. Link to Krushil's video here
Dr Donna Cormack (Kai Tahu, Kāti Mamoe) - University of Auckland
Discussions about the allocation of health resources in the pandemic have highlighted the broader issue of how prioritisation has become a routine and embedded part of healthcare in Aotearoa New Zealand. Increasingly, healthcare decision-making involves algorithmic approaches and/or automated tools, often claimed to be more fair or neutral. Yet decision-making tools are not ‘value-free’ – they necessarily reflect the values and contexts of the societies and institutions within which they are produced. This presentation will explore the (unspoken) values that sit behind tools such as those proposed to allocate ICU beds during the pandemic, and consider how they reproduce colonial values and ethics. Link to Donna's video here
FACILITATOR
Professor Tahu Kukutai (Ngāti Tiipā, Ngāti Kinohaku, Te Aupōuri) - University of Waikato
Tahu is the incoming Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and is Professor of Demography at the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato. She specialises in Māori and Indigenous demographic research and has written extensively on issues of Māori population change, Māori identity, official statistics and ethnic and racial classification. She is a founding member of the Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga and the Global Indigenous Data Alliance. She co-edited the landmark book Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda (ANU Press) and a forthcoming edited volume Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy (Routledge).Tahu has undertaken research for numerous iwi, Māori communities, and Government agencies, and is a member of the Chief Science Advisor Forum. She was formerly a journalist and has degrees in History, Demography and Sociology from The University of Waikato and Stanford University.
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