Dr Lynda Scott
National Health Spokeswoman
12 February 2004
Public ward segregation goes too far
It is unacceptable that an elderly woman with heart problems was asked to give up her bed in a public ward at Tauranga
Hospital because she was not Maori, says National's Health spokesperson Dr Lynda Scott.
Nurses at the Hospital attempted to move Elva Cooper, 69, after a request from other patients who wanted to be in an
all-Maori room. Ms Cooper was left upset and disturbed by two attempts to move her in what she believed was an
unacceptable form of racism.
"Ironically, Mrs Cooper is of Maori ancestry but because she does not look Maori she was asked to leave," says Dr Scott.
"It was not until she proved her lineage that hospital staff let her stay.
"The hospital's general manager admitted that it was usual in public wards to group Maori together if they requested
it."
Dr Scott says that if it was the other way around, and a Maori had been asked to move because a non-Maori wanted their
bed, it would rightly be seen as discrimination of the worst kind.
"The Minister of Health, Annette King, must act to ensure segregation of this sort in our public hospital system is
stopped," says Dr Scott.
Ends