Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
the number of students from ethnic minority groups. “They need to
institute a quota system for bringing in Mäori or Pacifica students.
They need to introduce that. To retain them they need to have
specialist Kaiawhina and I don’t know what the equivalent word is
for Pacific people. But they need to employ those people as from
the ground upward. Administrators, lecturing staff” (Participant 9:
117-122). This option would not be feasible, as it would go against
the principle of democracy, where all students applying to the
Department should have the same chances of being selected onto
the programme, and would have to be considered very carefully if it
has to be implemented.
Kleiman, Frederickson, and Lundy (2004) indicated that cultural
awareness, sensitivity and competence have been incorporated in
nursing programmes for the past 45 years, and by developing a
cultural awareness in the students would be a definite method of
improving the quality of care provided. There are ways of doing so,
as indicated by this participant. “I am always attempting to
maintain not just my relationship with the stakeholders, as well as
their actual involvement in the paper. As guest speakers and I am
talking about people from the industry from the providers, heads of
department, Maori they come and teach on a paper. Absolutely that
is what I want. I am sure that is what the department wants too.
Because it is not a practice paper it is a theory paper, . . . if we get
people to come into the classroom, people from the real world,
people from the theory that we are talking about” (Participant 5:
165-177).
However, it is not always easy to maintain this, as also indicated by
the same participant. “. . .my role in the curriculum development
and the whole Mäori content, whether it was just the paper or how
we integrated it, I felt as if I was running behind the train in terms
of what had been decided and where we were going. So I did a lot
of fact finding myself” (Participant 5: 53-59).
Gerrish (1998:116) indicated that some of the ethnic minority
stakeholders in the study conducted in the UK indicated positive
experiences with regard to sensitive and caring professionals they
could also identify areas of need pertaining to an understanding of
the cultural needs of the community. In this project, some of the
stakeholders had a more positive perception of the situation in New
Zealand. “I think that in a way there is a struggle with the ethnic
minority. I think they do very well” (Participant 2: 130-131).
Gerrish’s (1998:116) research indicated the complexity of
developing cultural and intercultural communication competencies.
“At the moment I don’t know if there are any providers in those
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