Listen Now: 
August 22, 2023
Nurses blocked from being Māori in system
Peter Verschaffelt
Posted On August 22, 2023
Download AudioThe kaiwhakahaere for the Nurses Organisation says the country’s 5000 Māori nurses face the continuing challenge of being Māori in the workplace.
Kerri Nuku says it was a major topic of the annual Indigenous Nurses Aotearoa Conference in Tāmaki Makaurau over the weekend.
The theme of the hui, Reclaiming our Whakapapa – Mana o te wai, was a challenge to the institutional racism where they are always forced to defer to mainstream settings.
“When we see that our people are being treated differently, how can we offer an alternative and have the confidence to do that when often managers or time constraints or processes don’t allow us to connect properly so that racism is really prevalent through the health system and it significantly impacts on our nurses,” Ms Nuku says.
She says the health system doesn’t recognise that Māori use health services at a higher rate because they have more complex co-morbidity, are late presenters and die early .
RELATED NEWS
