Crown failed to provide adequate healthcare to Māori - Waitangi Tribunal

The Māori Council is backing recommendations in a new report that call for a standalone Primary Health Organisation.

The Waitangi Tribunal has found that the Crown breached the Treaty by failing to provide adequate healthcare to Maori.

Executive director Matthew Tukaki said the focus was now about making change.

Lady Tureiti Moxon, managing director of Māori health provider Te Kohao Health, told The AM Show it was a positive report.

"It's very bold, very courageous, and very brave," she said. "It's really a historic move by the Waitangi Tribunal.

"While it is still an interim report, and we've still got two more stages to come, it's been absolutely a game-changer."

Lady Tureiti said the research was very clear, but The AM Show host Duncan Garner wasn't so sure.

"So what you're saying is they present [themselves] to the hospitals - and then they don't get an appointment as quickly as Pakeha?" Garner asked.

"So all these doctors are racist in unison? Really?"

Lady Tureiti replied: "I think that what we've got in our country is around people who [are] making decisions based on a particular paradigm; that paradigm meaning that it's from their own western view.

"We want it and we need it to change in this country."

The report found that Maori are twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease or heart failure.

Newshub.