Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet KellyRamsden also saw the need for nurses to understand colonisation processes andeffects, in order to realise that many Maori people viewed the health systemwith distrust, leading to avoidance of health care. She identified that manynurses and health carers brought with them (often unconsciously) theirassumptions, stereotypes and prejudiced attitudes from the dominant society,leading to unsafe care for Indigenous peoples. She sought to find ways toengage nurses and other health professionals within the health system, alertthem to the colonial past and present, but not lose them in historical guilt andits crippling emotional outcomes. She encouraged Pakeha (non Maori) nursesto not blame the victims of historical processes for their current plight, but toquestion the wider issues impacting on their ill-health, and to be open minded,flexible and self aware. Rather than caring for people regardless of theirdifferences, she promoted the idea that nurses provide care regardful and withrecognition of their differences and life circumstances (Ramsden 2002).Although colonisation experiences vary from country to country cultural safetycan be a suitable and pragmatic tool for enacting abstract postcolonialtheorising into health care and research in countries like Canada and Australia(Browne 2005; CATSIN 2002) By shifting the focus away from culturalcharacteristic and differences as the source of the problem, cultural safetyhighlights the culture of health care and the ways that polices, practices andresearch approaches can be seen as colonising, discriminating andexclusionary. It shows us pragmatic ways to enact client centred careembedded in respectful knowledge and power sharing and effectivecollaboration in postcolonial settings.As a means of illustrating this, I share an excerpt from my reflective journal.A young Aboriginal woman came into a clinic asking aboutcontraception. As with all my nursing interactions I tried to approach thisconsultation as a partnership that involved joint decision making where Ibring nursing / western medical/ sexual health knowledge, and theclient brings her personal life situation, lived experience and culturalknowledge. As we blend these together we come up with a plan ofaction that is unique and meets her needs. I tried to follow both verbaland non verbal cues throughout the consultation, recognising thatverbal communication is only one part of the discussion.104