Nurses call for ‘culturally appropriate’ patient ratios

The Nurses Organisation is calling for culturally appropriate ratios between nurses, midwives and patients.

The national organisation is touring the country, raising awareness of the health crisis in Aotearoa.

President Anne Daniels says the public health system needs adequate funding to shift to prevention and well-being, before people reach a crisis point.

“When I go into the emergency department to work and I see that the corridors are lined with patients, and I look at my colleagues rushing around, I know that the day is going to be full of decisions that I need to make about who gets the care in a timely way and who doesn't.”

The organisation wants to have nurse-to-patient ratios locked into legislation so it is protected across successive governments and budgeted for.

Daniels says these changes will take decades to turn around, but argues the current situation can’t continue.

“I met a pregnant woman in the sector in Nelson who said they can’t find a midwife and they’re extremely worried about how they’re going to provide safe passage for their newborn and where that might happen because they can’t find anybody, it’s dreadful.”

Pacific people are over represented in poor health statistics, including higher rates of hospitalisation and late diagnosis leading to more severe outcomes.

Daniels says many issues stem from poverty, which are then made worse by a lack of understanding from the workforce.

“We’re highly dependent on internationally-qualified nurses at the moment who make up about 45 per cent of our nursing workforce, and they are wonderful, I work with them, but they do not understand the culture within New Zealand.

“They are not given the opportunity to learn either, and the outcomes for Māori and Pasifika are based on culturally safe practice provided, so there are a lot of challenges there.”

There are 65,000 people who work in the health sector, but only 2.2 per cent of doctors have Pacific heritage.

Daniels says the extra funding to encourage more Pacific and Māori to train as doctors and nurses is only one part of the change that’s needed, and encourages health organisations, unions and government organisations to dig deeper to create lasting change.

“They have to look at themselves and challenge themselves, critique themselves to look at the opportunities to see the world that they live in from a Māori or Pasifika lens, and we're just not doing that.

“Many people in the past have actually created these tick boxes of what culturally safe practice looks like and so people tick the boxes, they learn a few things and they think they've done it, but it's actually a life journey and it actually starts right at the beginning with our children in kindergarten and tikanga right from the start so that we can slowly grow a culture in New Zealand that makes it normal to accept Māori and Pacifica approaches to health and well-being and their ways of living.”

Watch the full interview with NZNO president Anne Daniels on Pacific Mornings: