ANZCA is committed to improving cultural safety and advocating for indigenous health. The drive for safe and high-quality patient care in anaesthesia extends to opportunities for contributing to improved health outcomes for indigenous people in both Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi provides a basis from which government policy, and more recently ANZCA’s Indigenous Health Strategy, can be founded. There lies a commitment to provide for ‘partnership, participation and protection’ in policy making and in striving for equitable outcomes.
Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand and continue to experience disparities in access to care and poorer health outcomes. They continue to have a much lower life expectancy than non-Māori and experience higher rates of socioeconomic deprivation, disability and disease. Māori mortality rates are higher across nearly all age groups, and this has been most recently highlighted in the latest report from the Postoperative Mortality Review Committee. The report found that Māori living in the most deprived areas, who had an elective admission with general anaesthesia, had a much higher 30-day perioperative mortality rate than New Zealand Europeans. The Maori Caucus, convened by the New Zealand Health and Safety Quality Commission, included investigation of Māori patients’ experiences of care in the pre-operative setting among its recommendations for future research. The role for both quantitative and qualitative research was proposed and these recommendations have been endorsed by the committee.
The chief investigator is both a Māori Doctor and a recently qualified ANZCA fellow with an ongoing commitment to promoting and advocating for Māori Health. In this research proposal the aim is to assess the perioperative experiences of Māori who require care from an Anaesthetist and to identify potential facilitators of and barriers to their interactions with Anaesthetists. With this understanding the investigator aims to produce recommendations for culturally competent anaesthetic care of Māori patients in the perioperative setting. It is hoped that this research will stimulate more widespread and ongoing review of engagement with Māori patients as part of quality assurance activities in promoting safe and high-quality anaesthetic care. A key motivation is in promoting equitable access to care and equitable outcomes for Māori. The chief investigator hopes to combine the findings with their postgraduate qualification in Clinical Education to design an educational resource to assist anaesthetists in this area.
Dr Courtney Thomas, Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand
The project was awarded funding of A$20,000 through the ANZCA research grants program for 2019.
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