Pharmac under the gun

Stuff 's editorial stance now is to inspect every institution from a grievance angle.

In the process their journalists are actually practising racism.

Pharmac has only 3 staff who identify as Maori. This is apparently "absolutely appalling" for a "...drug-buying agency vowing to prioritise Māori leadership and uphold the Treaty of Waitangi as a way to ensure better health outcomes for Māori."

The inequitable access by Maori to medicines is implicitly, at least partly,  the fault of Pharmac decisions. Therefore the existing Pharmac workforce doesn't care about Maori. That's racist thinking right there.

Pharmac is an agency tasked with making impartial and objective decisions about medicine funding as their very core task.

The 'representation argument' taken further would require that Pharmac address why only 32% of their staff are male. And less than 4 percent are Asian. But nobody is jumping up and down about those realities. (I note that one in five staff does not disclose their ethnicity which leads me to suspect they don't see the relevance. There may be Maori among them.)

BUT like the many arms of the public service, Pharmac are succumbing:

Pharmac was also focused on developing cultural competency across the organisation and ridding itself of “unconscious bias” recognising “systemic racism” was a key determinant of Māori health, Simpson said.

Simpson is the Pharmac's inaugural chief Māori advisor.

So not insubstantial sums from Pharmac's budget are already being spent for training when they should be used for medicines.

For Maori and anybody else who needs them.