Zarghona Lafraie
In Aotearoa New Zealand, cultural safety is part of all health professionals’ training. The concept is deeply connected to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi—partnership, participation, and protection. But cultural safety is not just a professional concept for me. It’s personal as well, and thinking about it carries painful memories.
When I trained as a nurse here, it took me five years. Not because I lacked determination, but because English was not my first language. I had to read and reread, working twice as hard just to understand, to keep up and find my place in a system that was not built for someone like me.
I still remember my tutors saying to me, ‘you will not make it, You are not good enough.’ Those words do not disappear. They stay —quiet, but heavy. And yet, I kept going. Because when we arrive as refugees, we come with very little – but we carry hope for safety, dignity and for a future where our children can belong.
[Read more…] about Understanding cultural safety: A nurse’s reflection
This is not how I imagined medical school. I thought it was going to have more cardiac arrests, more trauma and more helicopters. Instead, my days as a trainee intern are spent writing up discharge summaries for consultants who I mostly never see. We’re meant to have our own patients – take a history, examine and diagnose. But the hospital is saturated with junior medical staff and deficient in patients. I guess it’s not a bad thing. Ever since we found a way to treat disease by providing treatment specific to a patient’s genetic code we haven’t seen anywhere near the amount of patients that we used to. Well, so the consultants say. But still, I sometimes wish something big would happen.
