Analyzing He Korowai Oranga: Maori Health Strategy in New Zealand

This report delves into the He Korowai Oranga, the Maori Health Strategy, a crucial initiative aimed at improving the health and well-being of Maori communities in New Zealand. The paper outlines the strategy's aims, including promoting Whanau Ora (family health), aligning with the Treaty of Waitangi, and achieving Wai ora (healthy environments). It identifies the Maori population as the primary target and explains the rationale behind this focus, highlighting historical health disparities. The report further examines the strategy's compliance with the New Zealand Health Strategy and describes specific health initiatives, such as increasing Maori participation in the healthcare workforce through programs like the Maori Provider Development Scheme. It concludes by emphasizing the positive impact of these initiatives on improving health outcomes for the Maori population, ensuring access to culturally safe care and fostering a stronger, more equitable healthcare system.

Running head: Health and rehabilitation
Health and rehabilitation
Name of the Student
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Author’s note

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Introduction
He Korowai Oranga means “the cloak of wellness”. It is actually a Maori health strategy,
that aims to develop and develop nurture Maori people both physically and spirituality. It
provides a comprehensive framework to guide the government along with the health and
disability sector for achieving the best health outcome for the Maori community. This paper aims
to discuss about the aims and the objectives of the Maori health strategy, discuss the target group
and the rationale for electing this target group for the reform (Came et al., 2016). This will be
again followed by the compliance of the Maori health strategy to the New Zealand health
strategy. Finally, it will describe one health initiative that has been implemented for supporting
the achievement of the strategy and the methods by which the chosen pathway assists improved
health outcome for the Maori group.
Discussion
Aims
The primary aim for the Maori Health strategy is to “Whanau ora”, that is to promote
health and wellbeing for the Maori communities. In Maori society, family is the prime source of
bonding and strength. It signifies security, safety and bonding. Sound health for a Maori
individual depends upon the overall health and the wellbeing of their extended family members.
The strategy aims to set a directive for the development of Maori health and by remaining
committed to the Treaty of Watangi (Ministry of Health, 2014). The next aim would be to
develop include the Whanau members (including the ones with disability) to participate in Maori
and a wider New Zealand society. Another important aim is to achieve Wai ora, which means the

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ambience where all the Maori are residing are suitable to live. This includes proper infrastructure
of the housing, sanitation and availability of potable water, clean neighbourhood, free from
communicable diseases, safety for children, women and elderly population. Another aim of the
strategy was to include Maori workers at all the sectors in the decision making process, planning
and implementation of health and disability care strategies. The He Korowai Oranga strategy
also helps to set direction for the Maori health in other services like the primary health care
strategy and the Health of Older people strategy and Public health strategy (Ministry of Health,
2014).
Target population and rationale for selecting the target population
The main target population for this strategy is the Maori population, who had originated
with the settlers from the Eastern Polynesia, who had arrived in New Zealand between 1320 and
1350. This population of people has always been deprived of the basic amenities of life and are
also likely to receive unequal health care facilities in comparison to the non- Maori. It has been
stated by several reports, that Maori Whanau have a poor health status, suffers from both
educational, occupational and income status, than the non-Maoris. Hence it was a challenge to
address the reasons of the inequality. One of the important reason behind the Maori Health
strategy is to include Maori people in the workforce of the health care sector. Considering the
health inequality faced by the Maori community, it is a necessity that the policy makers should
work together with the hapu, iwi and Maori communities for developing strategies for the
development of appropriate health care services (Ministry of Health, 2018).

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The ways in which the strategy supports the aims of the New Zealand Health Strategy
New Zealand had been facing with health care challenges of the growing aged population
and the growing burden of chronic illness that is occurring among people of New Zealand,
especially the ones belonging to different ethnic minorities. The New Zealand health strategy
acts as a framework for guiding changes in the system. One of the important guiding principle
for the New Zealand strategy is to preserve or acknowledge the treaty between the Maori and
government under the treaty of Waitangi (Treaty principles – Partnership, Participation and
protection) , to provide the best health care to all the New Zealanders, an improvement of the
health status of the disadvantaged. It should be noted that Maori are at the disadvantaged end,
hence the objectives of He Korowai orange is in compliance to the New Zealand health strategy.
Both the strategies aim to provide equitable health care to the Maori, especially in the disability
services. This is only possible by developing a Maori workforce in all the sectors (Sewell, 2017).
The government hence should ain to provide employment chances to the Maori people. Maori
health development group has been developed that determines to develop Maori workforce by
providing them with necessary training. They ensure that they provide supportive services to the
Maori community (Ministry of Health, 2018). One of the essence of the Maori health strategy is
that they believe in a culturally safe care, such as supporting disabled Maori individuals. This is
in compliance with the New Zealand strategy that aimed to develop a proper Whanau Ora. It is
evident that aims for both the strategies aimed at the health and wellbeing of the New
Zealanders, except the fact that He Korowai Oranga is more indigenous specific.
Health initiative for providing support to the strategy
An improved Whanau Ora can be achieved by following four main pathways. They are –
the development of the Hapu, Whanau, iwi and the Maori communities. The second pathway is

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to ensure Maori participation in the health and the disability sector. Pathway four ensures that the
health and the disability sector takes a leadership across the government and its aim of Whanau
ora by addressing the social determinants of health. In this paper, we will focus on only one of
the pathways- Participation of the Maori in the health and disability sector. This could be
attained by increasing the chance of including Maori workers in the health care sector. Maori
communities are being approached to work in partnership for fulfilling the health aspirations of
the Maori community and specifically the disabled people. Initiatives were taken to remove the
health care barriers faced by the disabled people. To accomplish this goal, the government has
mandated the participation of Maori representatives in the DHB boards. According to the New
Zealand Public and the Health disability act, each of the health boards should at least two Maori
representatives, having a wide range of understanding between about the Maori tradition,
traditions, health beliefs and aspirations. Among the various notable schemes Maori Provider
Development Scheme, is a scheme that provided grants to the Maori health providers. It is an
annual fund of about $8.89 million for improving the capability and the capacity of the Maori
health and the disability providers. Facilities were provided to those health care workers
working under organisations that work under some Maori organisations such as Iwi. Funding is
mainly provided for enhancing the infrastructure, introducing information technology, training
and advanced equipment (Lovell et al., 2016). Again, in order to develop a collaborative
workforce several organisations has been functioning together. Education and training sector
organisation like the Ministry of education, Career services, the tertiary education commission
(TEC), industry training organisations (Sewell, 2017). Health and disability sector organisations
like the district Health boards (DHB) Ministry of Health, Clinical training agency (CTA) has
been working together for achieving the plan’s goal (Ministry of Health, 2002). Additionally,

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there is a ministry of Women’s affairs who has been working together for any issues related to
children and women health.
Improved health outcome for the target group
A strong health and disability service will act as a step to Maori health and wellbeing.
Such initiatives will act as the pathway to preserve the rights of disabled people. It has been
stated that participation of a large number of organisation supporting wellbeing of Maori health
would naturally extend the geographical coverage of the Maori providers. This will in turn
ensure that all the Maori population have access to the choice of a Maori provider for disability
support plus the community based services. Maori are always underrepresented in the health and
disability workforce in all the sectors. Moreover, this would provide acceleration and greater
coordination in the workforce (Reid et al., 2016). The health advisory committee played an
important role in identifying the requirement of the health care workers, ensuring a systematic
way for developing. Maori community health and the voluntary workers have played an
important role in improving the health of the women. Some of the areas that has been
emphasized is recognition. As the Maori health workforce and disability sector will collaborate
with education sector, wider issues are hence getting addressed for indirect Maori participation in
the workforce (Sewell, 2017).
Conclusion
It should be admitted that the aim of He Korowai Oranga is to ensure a health and
diseases free Maori community, such that they get equitable health care facilities and to develop
a disability care sector powered by the Maori communities.

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