It is true that you are much less likely to die in a workplace accident, on the road, in a war, or from an infectious disease than in the past. But the foremost threat to safety today is not physical, but cultural.
The Pharmacy Council has risen to the challenge of combatting cultural peril. It has introduced a cultural safety requirement in its professional standards. To remain licenced, pharmacists must demonstrate “progress towards pharmacy practice that is culturally safe”.
Perhaps you think the main safety focus of pharmacists should be to avoid poisoning their customers. But by failing to embed cultural safety in every aspect of their practice, the Council warns, pharmacists become unwitting culprits in perpetuating health inequity.
But what is culturally safe practice? Does it simply mean respectful and courteous interactions with people of all backgrounds – in other words, not being a dick?
If only it were that simple.
In its guide, Towards Culturally Safe Practice, the Council informs pharmacists that it is patients who decide whether an interaction is culturally safe. But, the guide helpfully admonishes, “it is not their responsibility to then teach you.”
Fair enough. When customers fulfil prescriptions at pharmacies, most probably don’t want to get involved in extended conversations about their values and social conventions. But how, then, are pharmacists to develop the knowledge they need to keep customers clear of cultural jeopardy?
The guide is less helpful on that question than it might be. Pharmacists are enjoined to recognise how their own cultural biases and power might put their customers in cultural danger. To do this, they also need to inform themselves about their customers’ cultures.
This is where it gets a little complex. The guide provides a long list of factors that might influence a person’s culture: Age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, religion and disability.
That list, the guide points out, is not exhaustive. But even considering that many factors presents a dizzying array of potential combinations – and therefore potential cultures – with which a pharmacist might have to contend.
Just to add further complexity, as the guide goes on to say, “not everyone from the same culture will have the same needs and expectations.”
It’s almost as if everyone has their own individual identity. Now there’s an idea.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
Perhaps you think the main safety focus of pharmacists should be to avoid poisoning their customers. But by failing to embed cultural safety in every aspect of their practice, the Council warns, pharmacists become unwitting culprits in perpetuating health inequity.
But what is culturally safe practice? Does it simply mean respectful and courteous interactions with people of all backgrounds – in other words, not being a dick?
If only it were that simple.
In its guide, Towards Culturally Safe Practice, the Council informs pharmacists that it is patients who decide whether an interaction is culturally safe. But, the guide helpfully admonishes, “it is not their responsibility to then teach you.”
Fair enough. When customers fulfil prescriptions at pharmacies, most probably don’t want to get involved in extended conversations about their values and social conventions. But how, then, are pharmacists to develop the knowledge they need to keep customers clear of cultural jeopardy?
The guide is less helpful on that question than it might be. Pharmacists are enjoined to recognise how their own cultural biases and power might put their customers in cultural danger. To do this, they also need to inform themselves about their customers’ cultures.
This is where it gets a little complex. The guide provides a long list of factors that might influence a person’s culture: Age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, religion and disability.
That list, the guide points out, is not exhaustive. But even considering that many factors presents a dizzying array of potential combinations – and therefore potential cultures – with which a pharmacist might have to contend.
Just to add further complexity, as the guide goes on to say, “not everyone from the same culture will have the same needs and expectations.”
It’s almost as if everyone has their own individual identity. Now there’s an idea.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
13 comments:
We have heard a lot recently about the Real Estate Institute forcing propaganda down the throats of its members, but as this article shows, that isn't limited to them. All Professional Bodies are becoming less about their members giving a service and more about enforcing the doctrines of the last government. "Cultural safety" is creeping into all areas of life. We have a dictatorship, not from the top, but from the petty bureaucrats and "intellectual proletariat", the same group of people who were behind the raise of the Nazis.
The actual document from the Council ( here it is..https://pharmacycouncil.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Cultural-safety-guidance.pdf)
The document is very confused and contradictory. It stresses that patients come from all different cultures, then it goes on to hone in on the usual Maori "cultural difference".
I am a retired pharmacist with over 50 years practice, including 20 years as an Advisory Pharmacist for Medsafe.
My own opinion, shared by many many of my work colleagues is to treat all customers/patients as individuals and assess their level of understanding based upon that person.
We do NOT look out from the dispensary and say "Oh - that patient is part Maori. Therefore I will explain their medication to them differently than if they were European or Chinese or whatever."
Following up on my comment above:-
The Pharmacy Council that dictates the cultural safety nonsense is in an office in Wellington, totally removed from the real world of approx 2000 frontline pharmacists out there dealing with the public daily.
The Council , when asked what was their main function, actually said "To protect the public" From who? From pharmacists obviously.
All pharmacist's that I have known and worked with actually hold the Council in mild contempt, because they are a/ Not standing up for pharmacy, and b/ Are out of touch with the real world of dispensing pharmacy.
My comments are based upon my 50+ years of work in more than 40 different pharmacies and my 20 years of work as an Advisory Pharmacist.
I too am a Pharmacist, and support Doug’s view that each patient is an individual to be treated with dignity and respect and add that the responsibility of the Pharmacist is to provide medicines accurately and related information that is current and appropriate.
I note that the HPCA Act, which vested power in the Pharmacy Council contains NO reference to the Treaty, so it appears the Pharmacy Council have gone off the reservation. Their document entitled ‘Governance Charter’ is centred around the premise that Te Tiriti establishes the requirement for co-governance and partnership with Iwi Maori, and as someone quipped on The Platform it appears to have been written entirely by a Maori activist.
When pharmacists were consulted about the new Scopes of Practice, which embraced the treaty and ethnic division, the consultation document was a survey that assumed that this would be acceptable and only allowed scope to comment on the way it was written, not what was said. There was one opportunity for comment at the end which I used to state that The treaty had no place in healthcare, and that all must be treated equally, but it appears they weren’t listening.
It is alarming how much power is wielded in NZ by unelected individuals.
Here is an example of the essential competency standards for all pharmacists, according to the Council:-
● being familiar with mana whenua (local hapū/iwi), mātāwaka (kinship group not mana whenua), hapū
and iwi in your rohe (district) and their history,
● understanding the importance of kaumātua,
● being familiar with te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tīreni,
● advocating for giving effect to te Tiriti at all levels,
● understanding the intergenerational impact of historical trauma,
● understanding of the role of structural racism and colonisation and ongoing impacts on Māori,
socioeconomic deprivation, restricted access to the determinants of health,
● being familiar with Māori health - leaders, history, and contemporary literature,
● being familiar with Māori aspirations in relation to health,
● developing authentic relationships with Māori organisations and health providers,
● having a positive collegial relationship with Māori colleagues in your profession/workplace,
● being proficient in building and maintaining mutually beneficial power-sharing relationships,
● tautoko (support) Māori leadership,
● prioritising Māori voices,
● trusting Māori intelligence,
Well, I'll not a pharmacist, just an ordinary member of the public that requires their services increasingly often these days. I read what the Pharmacy Council decreed, and I was gobsmacked by their nonsensical statements that play the identity politics game. When you think of the intelligence pharmacists inherently have and that they are typically in business (thereby seek to relate to their customers if they want to remain in business), the comments by the PC are idiotic and it's not surprising there's pushback from its members. Like the Real Estate Agents Authority, these governing bodies have proved their current administrators/ideologues are quite unfit for theIr roles. It also highlights, yet again, the burden this fixation on the ToW and its related identity ideology is having on productivity in almost every sphere of activity. It's time this nonsense ended.
Exactly, Peter.
If the PC persists with this nonsense then I forsee a major exodus of pharmacists from the profession to Australia and other careers.
I once desired to buy rather a large amount of Vit C , which I used instead of antibiotics along with garlic for colds and flu.
At a pharmacy on requesting this , there was an aggressive and quite intimidating request by the pharmacist dressed in a white coat , to know what I was using the VitC for. I replied it was for cleaning my bicycle since to reply truthfully , I knew from previous interactions with pharmacists would invite a harangue about how useless and even dangerous this was.
Knowing that 30% of the 2023 parliamentary protest crowd were Maori , how do pharmacists now handle those with have divergent views on vaccines and Big Pharma ? There has developed an increase in lack of trust in doctors and pharmaceuticals since covid with, apparently according to US statistics the trust having been being reduced from 70% to 40% for doctors.
This issue doesn't appear to be addressed by the PC's cultural guidelines. Maori are turning to their own herbal solutions which may in some cases , I believe be genuinely dangerous. This is a real thing to consider not this other stuff the PC are rabbiting on about.
i thought in this ccntent, culturally safe meant handing over the meds even when the recipient sshould, can, but refuses to pay.
Many, many years ago, when the Herald was a proper newspaper, they published a synopsis of a Auckland Uni students PhD thesis that established that prior to the arrival of Europeans, that Maori had no concept of ingesting anything to fix a medical issue.
I wish I had kept a copy of it.
However, by now that thesis is likely to have been purged - as well as many other books that no longer acceptable.
Another silent May 10, 1933 in the Third Reich, here in NZ.
Who appoints these individuals to Professional Bodies like the REA and Pharmacy Council, and how do they get so much power that the ordinary members (like Real Estate agents and Pharmacists) let them get away with such antics? Why don't the members all mutiny and tell their Councils where to put their stupid ideas? If enough members did so, what would happen? Rather spineless reactions from where I stand
This is a direct quote from the Pharmacy Council:-
"The calamitous impact of
post-treaty westernisation of Aotearoa on Māori
resounds today and is evident in the palpably poor
health outcomes (amongst so many other social
indicators) for Māori."
Maori do have poor outcomes in health . I quote ' Maori have poor outcomes because of smokes , drugs and KFC' consumption . Western Medicine from my perspective does need to take some responsibility for this and placing much more emphasis on nutrition and lifestyle.
I took note of the thesis that Maori possibly didn't know about ingesting herbs etc for health purposes . Even monkeys know about eating kaolin clay to help digesting indigestible berries. Most native people have knowledge of herbs . Curious if Maori didn't . Maybe related to the fact they are not indigenous ? - hadn't been here long enough to build up this knowledge of NZ flora ?
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