Record number of new Māori and Pacific doctors this year

Record number of new Māori and Pacific doctors this year
Media Release - University of Auckland

23 November 2016

Record number of new Māori and Pacific doctors this year

A record number of Māori and Pacific graduate doctors from the University of Auckland joined the workforce this week.

At the University’s November graduation, Māori and Pacific medical graduates made up about a fifth of the 215 doctors to graduate from their six years of training.

The 46 medical graduates included 28 graduates who identified as Maori, 14 as Pacific, and four as Maori and Pacific.

“This high number reflects the increase in the intake of Māori and Pacific students into the University’s Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme(MAPAS),” says the director of Vision 2020, Dr Elana Curtis from Te Kupenga Hauora Maori, the University’s Māori health research unit.

“This is averaging around 20 to 25 percent of medical students per year now at the University of Auckland which is closer to the population proportion for this age group, and very positive,” says Dr Curtis.

At the Graduation ceremony on Friday, Emeritus Professor Colin Mantell (Ngāi Tahu) spoke to graduates and commended Vision 2020 with its goal of the MAPAS programme increasing the number of Māori and Pacific medical and health graduates to 10 percent of the health workforce by 2020.

Vision 2020 is the goal for a group of initiatives that includes MAPAS and secondary and tertiary level support for Maori and Pacific students, (including recruitment programmes such as Whakapiki Ake and Hikitia Te Ora).

Emeritus Professor Mantell who was a Professor of Māori and Pacific Health at the University of Auckland (before he retired in 2005), helped create the Vision 2020 programme with Professor Sir Peter Gluckman and the late Rob Cooper (Ngāti Hine).

He says, this year between Auckland and Otago universities “we have had 70 Maori medical graduates and 30 Pacific medical graduates. A record number for one year.”
Māori and Pacific peoples (who make up 15 percent and 7.4 percent of Aotearoa New Zealand’s total population) are under-represented as doctors, relative to the total population.

New Zealand’s medical workforce was estimated as made up of 3.2 percent Māori and two percent Pacific in a Medical Council survey conducted in 2014.

“Last Thursday [at the MAPAS completion celebration] we witnessed Vision 2020 coming alive in front of our eyes,” says the University’s Tumuaki Associate Professor Papaarangi Reid (Te Kupenga Hauora Māori).

“A great cohort of new health professionals; doctors, nurses, pharmacists and health science graduates starts work on Monday.

“Never before have we seen so many graduates who were supported by MAPAS - many of whom had also graduated from Hikitia Te Ora,” she says. “Record numbers of these graduates were recruited through Whakapiki Ake.”

“It was very poignant to have Emeritus Professor Colin Mantell and Gwen Tepania-Palmer with us, who together with other leaders like the late Rob Cooper, played pivotal roles in the development of Vision 2020.”

As well as the medical graduates, the MAPAS programme also resulted in students celebrating graduation last week including; three Māori and six Pacific students graduating with a Bachelor of Health Sciences; two Māori and four Pacific students graduating Bachelor of Nursing; one Pacific student graduating conjoint Bachelor of Health Sciences and Bachelor of Nursing; and a Māori /Pacific student graduating Bachelor of Health Sciences and Bachelor of Arts.

ENDS

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