A sudden surge in the number of young Maori being admitted to hospital has alarmed the WellSouth primary health organisation.
A new report on Maori health equity obtained by the Otago Daily Times sets out a bleak picture of Maori health in general and Maori infant health in particular.
In the Southern region, Maori smoking prevalence was 28.1%, compared with the non-Maori rate of 10.5%, and Maori also had a much higher prevalence of diabetes, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease.
Since 2014, hospitalisation rates of children aged 0-4 had been trending slowly downwards, but there was a sharp spike in admissions for Maori children last year, from just under 7000 per 100,000 population to 9000.
WellSouth chief executive Andrew Swanson-Dobbs said he had no explanation for that.
"I don't know why that is, and we need to understand why there has been that fluctuation.
"Was there something in the air, was there something that occurred in the environment, was it a colder winter or more smokers ... but we need to look closely at what we can do next winter for this population."
The sudden increase was disturbing, as was the wide gap which had opened up between admission rates for Maori and non-Maori children, Mr Swanson-Dobbs said.
"We need to make sure that those children are fully engaged in primary care with general practice and that they have a care plan, and we need to make sure practices have the skills to care for those people.
"WellSouth wants to be pro-active and to have a conversation with the families of these children and find out if there is anything the system can do to better support them so we can try and reduce the rate of hospitalisation."
The report singled out the top 10 reasons for hospital admission. Asthma, and upper respiratory and ear-nose-throat infections were well ahead of other causes.
Dental conditions rated third, just ahead of gastroenteritis and dehydration.
WellSouth has 305,000 patients registered with it, 9% of whom are Maori.
Nationally, Maori health statistics have long lagged behind non-Maori statistics.
Mr Swanson-Dobbs said, as he was newly appointed to his role at WellSouth, he did not have comprehensive knowledge of what had been done to improve the health of southern Maori in the past, but he wanted to prioritise improving those statistics in the future.
"Knowing that these statistics exist in my locality, I am determined to try and find a way forward and harness the energy of a lot of agencies to address it."
The Southern District Health Board has also made recent moves to tackle Maori health issues, and in December appointed a chief Maori health strategy and improvement officer, Gilbert Taurua.
