New Zealand debates whether ethnicity should be a factor for surgery waitlists

By NICK PERRY
Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealanders this week have been debating a thorny health care issue — whether ethnicity should be a factor in determining when patients get surgery. In the country’s largest city, Auckland, clinicians in some hospitals have been using an algorithm to adjust where patients sit on elective surgery waitlists. Clinical need remains the top factor, but the algorithm also takes into account how long patients have been on the waitlist, where they live, their financial circumstances, and their ethnicity. The idea is to balance out longstanding inequities in the publicly funded health system. Groups representing nurses have backed the tool, while a group representing surgeons said it’s too simplistic.