Māori health disparities are part of the medical system wallpaper in Aotearoa. Despite longstanding recognition of inherent inequities in the design and delivery of health services in the health system, there is resistance to meaningful change. The result is that Māori health workers and patients are forced to engage with health-demoting services that lack any cultural relevance. Reducing the potential harm of monocultural health services in Aotearoa New Zealand requires a letting go of colonial power from bureaucratic, social, and cultural structures that normalise such ethnic imbalances and inequities.
This presentation provides an overview of research conducted with Māori health service providers and funders of health services, exploring how co-design can lead to decolonisation and the rebalancing of power within the health sector. Co-design approaches embedded in indigenous concepts have shown to be effective in indigenous communities as it gives traditionally disempowered people a voice and supports the reclamation of autonomy to ensure interventions are fit for purpose and context. But what does co-design mean if we base the whole process of co-design and delivery of services based on relationships such as whanaungatanga? The building of relationships is something that is not currently funded and is seen as a by-product of funding other services. At present Māori health providers and practitioners are not being adequately resourced, with funders taking advantage of the dual role of Māori health service providers as community members and health providers. If funding of whanaungatanga, and other Māori concepts of healing were resourced adequately then co-designed services would be enabled at a greater rate than presently and go further to addressing the health inequities between Māori and non-Māori