Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Warwick Bagg: Auckland University Dean of Medical and Health Sciences on ACT campaigning on scrapping Māori and Pacific med-school places while keeping review findings private

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Warwick Bagg: Auckland University Dean of Medical and Health Sciences on ACT campaigning on scrapping Māori and Pacific med-school places while keeping review findings private · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The ACT Party calling for an end to race-specific placements
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: at medical school. They say a review of affirmative action
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: in medical schools shows discrimination toward non-Maori and Pasifika students.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: David Seymour wants to take the debate to the election.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Warwick Bagg, Auckland University Dean of Medical School and Health
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Sciences with me this morning. Warwick, good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Ron. How are you?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Very well, but we have the unfortunate position of talking
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: about something of which we know very little because no
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: one's seen this report apart from the ACT Party, apparently.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Well, we'd be delighted for the government to release that
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: report so that we can all talk about the facts
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: rather than electioneering, which is pretty concerning from our perspective.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of misconception around what the
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  Speaker 2: Māori and Pacific admission scheme is. When it started back
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: in 1972, we had one student that was a Māori student.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: In 2025, we had... one in six students who are
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Māori or Pacific students joining the program. We are desperately
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: short of Māori and Pacific doctors. This is about taking
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Māori and Pacific students where the school system does not
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  Speaker 2: serve them well and ensuring that they meet the highest
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: standards of success in our medical program and graduate as
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: excellent doctors. Yes.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Now, you said we are desperate for more Māori and
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  Speaker 1: Pacific doctors.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because one of the things that they're looking at with
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  Speaker 1: that David Seymour is testing. And he says, he seems
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  Speaker 1: to think has been proven wrong is that if you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: have more Maori and Pacific doctors, then you will have
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: better health outcomes for patients. Do we know that to
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  Speaker 1: be demonstrably, verifiably peer reviewed?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: True. Well, there's international and local literature that shows two things, right?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: The first is that there's evidence that there are better
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  Speaker 2: health outcomes because, um, You will seek out earlier care.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: You will get earlier access to cervical cancer screening, something
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  Speaker 2: the government has prioritised. You'll get earlier cardiovascular screening.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: If it's a Māori doctor or a Pasifika doctor?
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  Speaker 2: If it's a Māori or Pasifika provider.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: But is that because the provider... is giving those things
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: early based on race anyway. What I'm saying is, does
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  Speaker 1: it matter if when you go for your early cervical
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  Speaker 1: screening because you are Maori or Pacifica or whatever, does
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  Speaker 1: it matter whether the doctor is white or brown?
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  Speaker 2: It does seem to have some impact.
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  Speaker 1: How much impact? Because that's the key. How much impact?
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  Speaker 1: And do we know, do we have a statistic? Because
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  Speaker 1: that's exactly the point that David Seymour is getting at
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  Speaker 1: in this piece.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, let's flip it around the other way, Ryan.
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  Speaker 2: What we know from very good data is that if
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  Speaker 2: you are Māori and Pacific and you engage with non-Māori,
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  Speaker 2: non-Pacific doctors in our system, you are much less likely
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: to get offered cardiovascular screening and treatment. You're much less
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: likely to get offered aggressive therapies, a full range of therapies.
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  Speaker 2: So it doesn't work well for Māori and Pacific patients.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: When we have Māori and Pacific providers, when you can
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  Speaker 2: engage with a Māori provider, you're much more likely to
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: take up things like vaccination, for example. You're much more
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: likely to be offered those more advanced therapies. What we
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  Speaker 2: don't have is a line of evidence that says if
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  Speaker 2: you take a Māori student through the MAP-F scheme and
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  Speaker 2: then you put them out into the world, that we
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  Speaker 2: can draw a direct line with an end-patient outcome. And
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  Speaker 2: part of that is because of the long length of
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  Speaker 2: time and the very small number of Māori and Pacific doctors,
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  Speaker 2: which is what I said at the start, we are
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  Speaker 2: desperate for these doctors. Of the 20,000 doctors that we
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  Speaker 2: have in New Zealand, only just got up to just
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  Speaker 2: under 5% Just under 6% of them are Māori and
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  Speaker 2: only 3% of them are Pacific. So we don't get
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  Speaker 2: close to even matching their demography.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: What about the students who miss out? There was a
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  Speaker 1: parent who took a legal case. Their student had got 92%
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: through medical school, well, trying to get into medical school
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  Speaker 1: and couldn't get in, yet others with lower scores did.
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  Speaker 1: Is that fair? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Ryan, the fundamental issue is that the government tells
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  Speaker 2: us how many medical students that we can take. And
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  Speaker 2: every year there are excellent students from a whole range
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  Speaker 2: of groups who do not get places in medical school.
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  Speaker 2: We are oversubscribed by three to one.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, but should you take, like as a medical school,
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  Speaker 1: should you take the best?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we take the students who are academically capable. We
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: are selecting for students who have the qualities that will
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  Speaker 2: make them good doctors as well. And we have a
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  Speaker 2: mission to improve the equity health outcomes for all people
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand. And at the moment, we have a
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  Speaker 2: massive equity gap. It's our duty to ensure that we
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  Speaker 2: grow the Māori and Pacific medical workforce and other workforces
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  Speaker 2: to ensure we have equitable health outcomes.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: All right. Warwick, I really appreciate your time this morning.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being with me. Warwick Bagg, Auckland
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  Speaker 1: University Dean of Medical and Health Sciences.
• 5:12
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• 5:15
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• 5:18
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