New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has criticised the
Ministry of Health for spending almost $2 million a year on
traditional Maori healing, which he says appears to be a
serious waste of taxpayer money.
Radio New Zealand reported the ministry has contracts with 15
Rongoa Maori agencies, which use traditional healing
techniques such as massage and herbal remedies.
It has pent about $7.6 million funding the services over the
past four years.
Mr Peters told Radio NZ this morning there had been no
analysis of how well the healing techniques work.
"You can't get any read-outs of results or any analysis of
what is being done and how it's being done and the success
rate. It's about $130 for each client contact when we've got
not idea what's going on."
He said nobody was being held accountable for how the money
was being spent.
"There's no place for a system which has no analysis as to
whether it's successful, whether it's appropriate, what its
likely success rate will be, whether changes should be made.
On the face of it, it appears to be a serious waste of
taxpayers' money."
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