The bit in quotes in the title may be a bit mean, but it’s the title an anonymous reader gave in an email linking to several articles from a New Zealand site (here, here, and here). The articles describe a new set of standards for registered nurses in the country, standards that I read in the official government document (see below).
Why this seems “asylum-ish” is because the standards are almost entirely directed to prioritizing and catering to the indigenous Māori population of the country, even though they are in a minority of the population (16.5%) compared to Europeans (70%) but also very close in numbers to Asians (15.3%, with most of the remainder being Pacific Islanders). The standards direct New Zealand nurses to become “culturally competent”, which is okay if it means being sensitive to differences in psychology of different groups, but is not okay if it means medically treating those groups in different ways, or having to become politicized by absorbing the Treaty of Waitangi or learning about intersectionality. And that is in fact the case with the new standards, which also prompt NZ nurses to engage in untested herbal and spiritual healing, including prayers. The whole thing is bonkers, but it takes effect in January.
As one of the articles says, “critics argue that these changes prioritise ideology over practical skills.” And I suspect you’ll agree after you read the relatively short set of official standards given below. Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles in the news:
The updated Standards of Competence require nurses to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau (Māori cultural safety) by addressing power imbalances in healthcare settings and working collaboratively with Māori to support equitable health outcomes.
The standards place a strong emphasis on cultural competency, including the need for nurses to establish therapeutic relationships with individuals, whānau [Māori extended families], and communities. They must also recognise the importance of whanaungatanga (building relationships) and manaakitanga (hospitality and respect) in fostering collective wellbeing.
One of the more significant additions involves requiring nurses to “describe the impact of colonisation and social determinants on health and wellbeing.” Additionally, nurses must advocate for individuals and whānau by incorporating cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental health into whakapapa-centred care (care focused on family and ancestral connections).
The new Standards of Competence have faced sharp criticism from some nurses, who argue the requirements impose ideological perspectives and unnecessarily complicate training processes.
However, none were willing to speak on the record for fear that voicing their concerns could jeopardise their employment.
The standards are unbelievable, so extreme in their catering to indigenous peoples that they seem racist against everyone else. But don’t take my word for it: simply click on the document below and look it over. It’s no wonder that many nurses are flummoxed by the new directive, which, as usual, is heavily larded with indigenous jargon that many (including Māori) don’t understand. The language is simple virtue flaunting.
The very start of the standards promotes the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”)—an agreement between some (not all) Māori tribes and the British governance that established three principles. First, Māori would become British citizens with all the rights attending thereto. Second, the governance of New Zealand would remain in the hands of Britain and British settlers (“the Crown’). Finally, the Māori would be able to keep their lands and possessions and retain “chieftainship” of their lands.
Even though this agreement was never signed by all indigenous tribes on the island, it has assumed almost a sacred status in New Zealand, with a newer interpretation that goes something like this: “The Māori get at least half of everything afforded by the government, and their ‘ways of knowing’ would be considered coequal to modern knowledge (including in science and medicine). Further, Māori, as ‘sacred victims’, would get priority in educational opportunities and, in this case, medical treatment.”
If you read The treaty of Waitangi, you’ll see it says nothing of the sort. It simply establishes rights of governance and possession in a deal between Europeans and Māori. But the Māori have used it to inflict considerable guilt on the non-Māori population, to the extent that you simply cannot question the interpretation of the treaty above, or of the increasing forms of “affirmative action” for Māori, because people who raise those questions, like the baffled nurses above, risk losing their jobs. This is the reason that virtually every academic and citizen who writes to me from New Zealand about the fulminating and debilitating wokeness of the country asks me to keep their names confidential. The fear of questioning what’s happening in that country is almost worse than the burgeoning affirmative action towards a small moiety of the population. Granted, the Māori have been discriminated against and had it bad for a while, but those days are really over now, and it’s time to treat everyone according to the same rules. And of course nurses know that they have to have different bedside manners towards different patients. But that doesn’t mean that they must treat some of them with chants and prayers.
Well, on to the rules. And they begin, in the very first directive, by emphasizing the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi!. I’ll post screenshots as well as text, and will highlight some bits in red. Here’s the first page of “standards of competence”. Te Tiriti doesn’t take long to appear!
“Pou” are “standards”. Here are the first two. Note that the introduction to the document doesn’t say explicitly that these standards are culture-directed and a subset of other standards of nursing skill. No, these are just “the standards.”
Pou one: Māori health. Reflecting a commitment to Māori health, registered nurses must support, respect and protect Māori rights while advocating for equitable and positive health outcomes. Nurses are also required to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau by addressing power imbalances and working collaboratively with Māori.
Pou two: Cultural safety Cultural safety in nursing practice ensures registered nurses provide culturally safe care to all people. This requires nurses to understand their own cultural identity and its impact on professional practice, including the potential for a power imbalance between the nurse and the recipient of care.
The two pou expanded, which are directives about how registered nurses are supposed to behave.
Under standard (pou) #4, called “Pūkengatanga [expertise] and evidence-informed nursing practice”, we see this.
What is Rongoā? Ask the Museum of New Zealand, which describes it as “Māori medicine”, characterizing it like this:
In traditional Māori medicine, ailments are treated in a holistic manner with:
- spiritual healing
- the power of karakia [prayers of incantations]
- the mana [supernatural essence] of the tohunga (expert)
- by the use of herbs.
In other words, nurses are supposed to allow patients to choose their own therapy, even if it includes untested herbal remedies, spiritual healing, supernatural power, and prayers. Is it any wonder that nurses are both confused and opposed to this?
It goes on and on in this vein, consistently outlining standards of care that favor Māori, and then ending with a glossary heavily laden with woke and postmodern terms, Again, these are being given to registered nurses (no, not shamans) to tell them how they must behave. A few items from the glossary, which have no clear connection with nursing:
Again, as far as I can determine, these are not just standards for nurses to become culturally sensitive, but appear to be general standards for nurses that want to be qualified as nurses. And the standards have become so ideological and political that—and I don’t say this lightly—they seem pretty racist, favoring one group over another and telling nurses to afford indigenous people care and treatment that others don’t get. Is there to be no cultural sensitivity towards Asians, who have their own form of indigenous herbal medicine?
Here are some sentiments expressed by Jenny Marcroft, the Health Spokesperson for the New Zealand First political party.
It goes without saying that it nurses must do all this stuff to practice their skills, many might be compelled to leave New Zealand and practice overseas, something that the country can’t afford to happen. And so, because opponents of this stuff are silenced, the country, immersed in wokeness, continues to go downhill.
Answer: “Owing to colonisation, Maori patients benefit greatly from a more prosperous society, a higher standard of living owing to Western technology than had there been no colonisation, and, in particular, they benefit from access to Western health care, which is far superior to any other form of health care.”
Do I get sacked?
Yes, it is really weird. Maori NZ wokeness seems to dislike colonization, yet the treaty from which they derive all their political power is with Great Britain.
Meanwhile, NZ has supposedly achieved full independence from Britain and is a sovereign state. And yet King Charles, the British Monarch, is the Head of State of NZ.
Same with Canada, the King is the (ceremonial) head of state.
Again, ferchristsake: I can only hope that I will soon wake up from this nightmare…hey is that why they call it woke?
“culturally” is likely straight out of the Marxist literature.
For example, consider/search “culturally relevant teaching” to find a Marxmine of gnostic literature/pedagogy.
Every Woke word conceals an agenda – and in such a way as to evoke the idea “well what’s the harm in that?”.
Motte/Bailey tactic for control.
It seems as though everyone everywhere is going nuts.
I wonder if the increased temperatures are correlated with the rampant craziness
or perhaps it’s population pressure – too many people to deal with and control?
Bryan, just a note to say “Thanks” for making me aware of “The Strange Death of the University” and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. As you likely know, Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being) includes: Integrating traditional medicine practices alongside modern healthcare systems to address community health needs.
So to other commenters, yes, this is being encouraged to spread to other countries.
Thanks
And here’s some relevant UNESCO literature :
Parr, et. al.
“Knowledge-driven actions: transforming higher education for global sustainability”
2022
UNESCO
(Search for it from UNESCO website).
Either the BC nurses association copied this NZ directive, or NZ copied the BC nurses association directive. It’s equally as bizarre in fully woke British Columbia and similar bizarre edits are in place here. The province is divided into health authorities for the delivery of primary health care. I live on Vancouver Island, which is a health care authority. The website for ICA (Island Care Authority) lists on the “clients” section of the website ICA clients in this order: Indigenous, Metis, settlers. Settlers? So the authority delivery health care decides that 99.9 percent of its “clients” are “settlers.” And that ain’t a polite term anymore. I complained several times in email and backed up my complaint. I am sure I wasn’t the only one. Now the website still says “settlers” in a few places and says “English” in others. English? What about Asian “settlers,” German “settlers,” French “settlers”. Sigh. There was a kafuffle in the last couple of years about indigenous complaints of something or other in health care, and the main complaint was that the process for registering complaints was itself racist and discriminatory. we can only hope that the pendulum has swung about as far over as it can go into this crap and it will now make its way back to some vestige of normalcy. I’m not holding my breath though.
Wow that’s discouraging. I’m retired and out of the loop on this stuff.
signed, fellow Vancouver Island resident
My sister retired in May after 42 years as OR nurse and then nurse educator. She said trying to nurse now is pretty defeating, and combined with the (as a generalism) attitudes of 20-somethings who don’t like to be told what to do and who jump all over every woke cause, she said she’s glad she isn’t part of it anymore. The Fraser Health Authority’s loss of a top notch surgical nurse.
A real shame it’s going like this.
Under these rules, is it even possible to find a nurse or medical doctor that can be trusted? I’d be reticent to engage a health care system that is so steeped in woo. (I’m aware that we in the U.S. have woo in the interstices of our system, but one has to choose to go there willingly. It’s not embedded in the fabric.)
Is there are realistic way for NZ to reverse course or is it too late?
“Pou Two Descriptor 2.1 Practice culturally safe care which is determined by the recipient.”
If Maori beliefs prohibit blood transfusions, would the state allow a child to die because of this restriction?
Probably, yes, as in this Ontario case from 2015.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/makayla-sault-case-reignites-debate-over-a-minor-s-right-to-refuse-treatment-1.2920245
The 11-year-old indigenous child died after abandoning medical treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia while in first remission in favour of traditional remedies. ALL is a curable cancer, not in everyone, but it’s the way to bet. The CBC as always was careful not to step on indigenous toes. Yet it’s clear that while white religious objections from parents are dismissed out of hand in a secular society, with indigenous religions, it’s “Not so fast there, Doc.” (Ironically, the Saults are themselves devout Christians.)
This is not a case of a family living on a remote Reserve in the vast roadless wilderness of northern Ontario, where travel south for treatment could be a burden. The Saults live in a suburb of Toronto. Another case was of a child on a Reserve just 20 miles from the children’s cancer centre at McMaster University, whose family then took her to Florida for alternative treatment.
It’s as if we believe the indigenous inhabit a different mystical world from ours, crossing into ours through the mists of Avalon only when they want something that ours produces that theirs doesn’t….and we have to provide it on their terms with cultural safety. Mikayla Sault had no rights as an individual in Canada because she didn’t live in our world. She lived in a world where those rights don’t reach through the portal.
That’s a shame. The article says 75% chance of a cure with chemotherapy.
And zero chance with “indigenous medicine.”
In my intro biology class I used to show this graph that showed progressively better and better rates of long term survival in children diagnosed with ALL. The aim was to show that science worked!. It was amazing, as many years ago ALL was a fairly certain death sentence, but eventually it got to be orders of magnitude better.
I had to practice that slide in advance in order to inure myself, lest I choke up since it was so g.d. moving.
I choked up, too, just imagining what your slide looked like.
“A thousand shall fall.”
(That’s the title of a novel that has nothing to do with medicine but it just comes to mind, almost like an intrusive thought, whenever I think of needless death.)
The deal breaker is Pou 2. Cultural Safety Descriptor 2.1
“Practises culturally safe care which is determined by the recipient.”
This leaves the nurse unable to defend herself if accused of culturally unsafe care since the offence, like sexual harassment, is entirely in the eye of the offended against. I thought you were unsafe therefore you were. No defence grounded in professional standards can be mounted. “What, you question the validity of my hurt feelings?”
(Before getting too worried, “culturally safe care” may be just a shibboleth like “lived experience” and “Latinx”. Your employer or professional regulator might demand you use “Latinx” when you write your diversity report but since no Latino/a is going to complain about you if you use “Latino”, you can probably ignore the requirement in everyday work.)
But it’s bigger than that. Bryan, as always, gets me thinking. Note the escalation contained in the term, culturally safe care. Attitudes which might have been regarded as insensitive but harmless, such as insufficient genuflection to indigenous sensitivities in the provision of care — some of which are simply cultural stereotypes themselves — are now seen as perpetrating violence (unsafety) against them. This is especially concerning in health care where the poor health status of many indigenous populations is down to alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity, non-participation in school and work, child abuse/neglect, and criminal affiliation, which only they can fix for themselves by taking ownership and responsibility. A nurse will be in serious trouble if she does not, safely, put all these dysfunctions down to white colonialism, which guarantees that the particles in everyone’s brains will work against solution, except obviously by decolonization. Working with indigenous clients in any of these domains will be a double bind for nurses. Either enable or be censured. Literally the only way we can help, under a culturally safe care formula, is by turning over all our land, resources and governance, and then leaving the scene.
Demand for culturally safe care is profoundly political, not medical/nursing at all. Advocacy for indigenous equity requires health professionals to take one side of a partisan political question. Putting this into professional standards amounts to a political test for licensure.
And this is what “progressives” want in the United States: government and others of the “expert” class who impose their values and practices on the country—no matter the degree of societal support.
As we are all aware, attention to kawa whakaruruhau and
the grave sins of colonialism are still quite absent from the professional standards of bridge design, automobile repair, electrical engineering, and similar pursuits. Their imposition in medicine, in particular (notably in Canada, as several commenters report) is striking. In the US, a comparable infiltration of woke doctrines in medical schools is very obvious (summarized in Dr. Stanley Goldfarb’s trenchant book “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns”). The sociology of this process merits some
investigation. I wonder if there are not-so-subtle academic and administrative links between the grievance studies fiefdoms and the medical establishments. In the academies of the Anglosphere, the recent trends are as if Lysenkoism in the galaxy far away had taken over in the medical establishment rather than in Agronomy and then Biology.
Jon, referring to your first sentence: a discussion about a Māori staffing plan for the Faculty of Engineering at my NZ university became more wide-ranging than just staffing initiatives. I commented on mātauranga Māori not having much to say about how to design and build bridges. The answer I got was, paraphrasing, ‘No, but it can tell us where to build them.’ This was from the person who subsequently became Dean of Engineering.
So don’t be too sanguine!
Doug, I am sanguine about the bridges since no funder will listen to Deans of Engineering about anything to do with infrastructure. To wit, the Minister of Roads ( and anti-Christ of cycleways ) will actually be the person who decides where to build any bridge. Mayor Wayne Brown will tell you where not to build a bridge in Auckland. Minister Nicola Willis will tell you the bridge is actually cancelled or downsized because of financial crisis N+1. MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will tell you how many protesters can walk on the bridge at any one time. The Leader of the Opposition will consult their spiritual guru ( aka political pollsters ) before bridge pontificating. The UoA or AUT Engineering departments will have no meaningful input about anything.
Ramesh 2% Denisovan and staunch decoloniser of the Database of the Denisovans.
Let’s just suppose that a Maori patient is receiving crucial, possibly life-saving, care from a nurse who is concentrating on her clinical skills, and who happens to overlook the need to consider the impact of colonisation and social determinants on her patient. Who is going to complain about the nurse? I doubt whether the patient would give two hoots, as long as he or she survives and gets better. Is a DEI commissar going to attend every single treatment episode, to ensure that the dogmas of Rongoa are adhered to? It’s a measure of where things have got to that the answer may well be ‘Yes’.
I could not bear to read all the bonkers stuff going on down in NZ. My one comment is that it looks as though we are headed for some pretty bonkers stuff here in the USA. Banning the polio vaccine. Taking fluoride out of the water supply.
I wonder if they aim to de-folate grains or if that is sufficiently under the radar that that piece of public health support will continue.
In NZ there is currently a controversy around fluoridation. Really. Purity Of Essence, anyone?
I wonder if people calling the Maori population “indigenous” realize that they only colonised NZ about 150 years before Columbus made it to the New World (by this logic, Europeans are indigenous to any land that they settled on which didn’t have an existing people already living there). Then when Maori arrived, they ravaged the local flora and fauna. I don’t understand the reverence for this culture.
Not to mention the parallel situation of Jews living in the middle east thousands of years before this but now being portrayed as evil colonisers.
Europeans aren’t indigenous, even in Europe.
Here’s the UN definition:
https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf
Methinks they may soon be if certain immigration policies continue.
White Europeans can be UN-defined indigenous, even if they become a minority.
They’ve probably got Palestinians as indigenous too.
To which possibility Douglas Murray replies, “Then welcome to Hell.”
Lots of pagan practices are indigenous in Europe and persist in many places. They have been opposed by Catholics for centuries, but the history is complicated. One good source of information is the book Enchanted Europe. Many traditional remedies can be bought on the Internet. I am sure if you want to know what is a good spell to rid your house of roaches, you will be able to find it on the Internet, and it will often have a quite ancient origin, for example in the way it appeals to saints as the indigenous folk in Europe have done for centuries.
Surely you are not equating European medical practice with the nurses training that this post described. This was a government initiative in NZ and you are describing private individuals who are deluded. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
Sorry I was not clearer. My point was only that just as
the indigenous practices of Māori and of Canadian tribes do not provide us with valuable knowledge of how to treat sick people, the indigenous practices of European folk are equally not a good source of knowledge. In fact many indigenous practices of European folk were combatted by Catholics. Remedies which were part of folk tradition in Europe were combatted in part because of hostility between indigenous pagan culture and Catholic teaching. Pagan practices including remedies for diseases were widespread and have persisted in parts of Europe, and are no more worthy of being treated as knowledge than the healing rituals of tribes in New Zealand or Canada.
This kind of medical behavior is politically tenable in NZ because it has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Things are going well, so the medical system has some capital to play with. However, if this begins to erode those life expectancies, especially in the non-Maori population, then heads will roll.
It somewhat reminds me of European militaries. European nations have been able to afford small militaries and low military budgets because that burden was, basically, carried by the United States. It seems like a dumb plan, but as long as Russia isn’t aggressive and the US doesn’t elect an isolationist dimwit, Europe can play the good guy making amends for its evil colonialist history.
Likewise NZ has a great medical system and high life expectancies and so long as those statistics don’t erode, it can tell indigenous shaman activists what they want to hear and play the good guy making amends for its evil colonialist history.
Along with being badly paid no wonder they’re all going overseas!
How am I expected to accept that Matauranga Maori as a “knowledge system” is to treated co-equallly with “Western Science” (whatever that may be) when it attempts to state, explicitly, that is is valid for treatments to be determined on an ethnic and cultural basis? As I understand it, Science, as a tool for attempting to increase our understanding of the Universe, encourages us to take rule-of-thumb findings and seek to generalise them; it demands that we ask ourselves, “what does this finding tell me more broadly about how the world works, and which co-existent factors can I ignore as unimportant to the generalisation of my findings?”. Sure, being mindful of cultural practices is vitally important as a supporting framework. But if, for example, the sap of Phormium Tenax (a native NZ Flax) displays strong anti-coagulant properties, would we not use scientific methods to ask ourselves what this tells us more broadly about human physiology and botany in general, rather than claim that flax sap should be considered a valid treatment for some communities and not for others? If Matauranga Maori was indeed co-equal with Science, would it not strive to ignore any irrelevant cultural and ethnic factors in healthcare when they have no impact on how we care for our fellow humans? Would there not then simply be one “knowledge system”, that of Science, that we all share? The whole notion seems, to me at least, rather self-contradictory. I come to the depressing assumption that rather than using Science to rid ourselves of some of our more dangerous prejudices, my country is determined to embrace the crude heuristics of ethnicity and culture to the extent that we will damage the health and well-being of some of our most vulnerable communities. But I’m just a lay-person who cares about universal truths, not a science or health professional. What would I know?
Wow. It seems to be getting worse over there.
Even with an allegedly anti-woke new government.
That’s the problem I’ve been harping about. A generation of children have been brought up on this garbage – now young adults and gaining more power – and it is still underwritten by billions of pro-woke bucks – here in the US, also in NZ, Canada and the UK and Oz.
I’m unsure of how to reverse this given how deep it is culturally.
And it didn’t happen fast. Some commenters trace it all the way back to the 60s, gaining each year like a large fungus underground.
D.A.
NYC