Pacific Health

Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB) has the largest Pacific population in New Zealand and approximately 5% of our workforce are Pacific. The organisation is committed to employing a diverse workforce to reflect the population that its serves. The Pacific staff at CMDHB are Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Cook Islands, Tokelauan.

Pacific staff at CMDHB are represented in a wide variety of specialist positions ranging from doctors, paediatrician, surgeons, cultural workers, interpreters and translators, nurses, senior managers, mental health specialists, Information Systems workers, social workers, maintenance staff and various administrators within the hospitals.

There is a national trend of a shortage of Pacific healthcare workers and CMDHB has workforce projects that are currently underway aimed at addressing workforce strategies to address the shortages in the sector.

Pacific staff contribute towards making CMDHB a better working place by ensuring there is a better understanding of the population that it serves and provide valuable input into key organisational decisions through various levels of the organisation.

CMDHB have the only Pacific Health Advisory Committee in the country and it is a non-statutory committee that provides advice to the Board at CMDHB on important Pacific health issues. The General Manager Pacific Health is a member of the Executive Management Team and is responsible for the joint functions of Pacific funding and planning and also the cultural support unit at the hospital.
 

Pacific Cultural Resource Unit

The Pacific Cultural Resource Unit exists to provide:

• cultural support to high need Pacific patients and their families who may be admitted to Middlemore Hospital inpatient services
• support outreach follow-up for high need Pacific patients who are not able to attend outpatient clinics
• cultural advice and support to staff and services working with Pacific populations.

Why is Cultural Support Important?

Cultural support can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. Ignoring culture can lead to negative health consequences in many ways:

• patients may choose not to access needed services for fear of being misunderstood or disrespected
• clinicians may miss opportunities for screening because they are not familiar with the prevalence of conditions among certain minority groups
• clinicians may fail to take into account differing responses to medication or lack knowledge about traditional remedies, leading to harmful drug interactions
• clinicians may make diagnostic errors resulting from miscommunication or order fewer diagnostic tests for patients of different cultural backgrounds because they may not understand the patient’s description of symptoms. Alternatively, clinicians may order more diagnostic tests to compensate for not understanding their patients
• patients may not adhere to medical advice because they do not understand or do not trust clinicians
• Staff may also require assistance to manage complex interactions where Pacific patients involve their wider family in their healthcare decision making

Published:  19-Nov-2008  |  Website enquiries:  Publishing Co-ordinator