When a hospital worker told Isobel Prasad she was only a teeny bit Māori, she was reminded of the other kind of ‘special treatment’ dished out to her people in the health system.
She started the conversation off so pleasantly, I couldn’t have guessed she’d end up questioning how Māori I was.
But there I was, visiting my sister at Auckland City Hospital, and listening to a stranger tell me I was only a teeny bit Māori.
She worked there and she approached me. Let’s call her Kaye.
After discussing how long she’d worked at the hospital, she began talking about the “special treatment people of the right colour” receive in the health system.
When I asked her to clarify what she meant, she said she was speaking about the “special treatment” she believes Māori receive.
Being Māori and Fijian-Indian, I’m no stranger to racist and ignorant comments, but I felt myself shrink into my seat as she lectured me on my supposed “privilege”.
With a knot forming in my stomach, I thought of all of the whānau members I’d lost, who had struggled to navigate a health system built against them.
My 40-year-old cousin to bowel cancer, my two uncles to heart attacks in their 40s, an aunty to breast cancer.
Kaye then went on to question my whakapapa Māori.
“You’re just a teeny bit Māori. There are no full-blooded Māori left, so you’ll only have a little bit in you,” she said.
I don’t base my Māoritanga off my blood quantum - to me, it’s irrelevant - and yet my heart started racing. Heat rose through my body and sweat settled on my forehead. I wondered what to say, how to defend myself and my people to a person who seemed to have no idea how I felt.
I left the hospital as soon as I could, the crisp winter air hitting me as I made it through the doors.
“Phew, I’m finally out of there”, I said to myself.
But that relief soon turned to an overwhelming sense of responsibility to speak about my experience in the hope of preventing it happening to others.
The weight of it felt as heavy as an elephant on my shoulders.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the “special treatment” Māori and Pasifika receive in the health system, especially surrounding the new equity adjuster waitlist tool for surgery.
It’s a tool which Māori leaders, iwi and communities hope will help address some of the shortfalls in our health system, which research shows continues to fail us.
The tool considers ethnicity, along with clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic isolation and socioeconomic deprivation in prioritising patients for surgery.
Of course, the outrage flowed and it was all centred on special treatment for Māori. What those critics forgot to mention was the other type of “special treatment” we receive. The special treatment dished out by people like Kaye.
I wish my experience at Auckland Hospital was some one-off. It wasn’t.
A couple of years ago my 16-year-old sister called me. She’d been to see her doctor in Christchurch about her upper back.
She said the GP began talking about how my petite sister was going to become “obese like all the other Māoris”.
She said what he told her next was even worse.
“Go to the supermarket, follow a fat Māori lady around and don’t buy anything in her cart.”
She was shocked and incredibly upset. And yet, on the scale of racial attacks, it’s mild.
Research shows racist experiences like this are one of several factors that discourage Māori and Pasifika from accessing our health system.
Why would we visit a doctor or a hospital, if this is the way we are treated?
That’s why it’s so important that those working in healthcare recognise their words have weight.
After that day at Auckland Hospital, I made a formal complaint and received a prompt response, including an apology. Kaye and her colleagues will now undergo professional training, focusing on cultural competency. It’s an outcome I’m incredibly pleased with.
In a statement, Te Whatu Ora Acting Lead for Hospital and Specialist Services, Margaret Dotchin said, “We take any allegations of racism extremely seriously and encourage our patients or whānau who may feel they experience racism to contact us so that we can look into the matter".
“It is important to us that our patients and whānau are heard and we appreciate getting the chance to apologise during these conversations."
I have the confidence and platform to speak up and share my experience, but many don’t.
I think of the koro and nanny, or the young mother, who may find themselves in a similar situation.
I worry they’ll walk away from our system completely, not seeking the support or care they need, and I fear this is the experience so many of our people are facing.
SHARE ME