Intended for healthcare professionals

Obituaries

Irihapeti Ramsden

BMJ 2003; 327 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7412.453 (Published 21 August 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;327:453

Nurse who campaigned for the specific healthcare needs of indigenous peoples to be addressed

Irihapeti Ramsden is perhaps best known in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally for the development of cultural safety–an educational framework for the analysis of power relationships between health professionals and those they serve. She consistently argued for the need to address the ongoing impact of historical, social, and political processes on Maori health disparities. Her ideas were both challenging and threatening to many pakeha (European) New Zealanders who were, and are, often ignorant of the country's history and fearful of difference.


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Cultural safety has been part of the New Zealand nursing and midwifery curriculum since 1992 (see457). Its introduction was met with a barrage of negative, and sometimes vicious, media coverage, culminating in the threat of an inquiry by the New Zealand government's education and science select committee in 1995. Throughout this period Irihapeti–who trained as a registered general and obstetric nurse at Wellington Hospital in the 1960s–calmly and eloquently responded to misrepresentations and accusations about the aims of cultural safety. She also continued to teach and work towards developing a comprehensive education approach that would facilitate opportunities for skilled analyses and an informed debate.

Irihapeti, who belonged to the people of Ngai Tahupotiki and Rangitane, New Zealand, worked in comparative intellectual and emotional isolation for many years. Her views were often as unpredictable as they were original. In 1990 during the 150th anniversary commemorations of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand, she was dismissive of the building of waka (war canoes) that were being hailed by Maori and pakeha alike as an exciting rebirth of Maori tradition. “They are nothing more than Maori frigates”, she said, “and simply reinforce the stereotype of Maori as warriors.”

She held various international positions over the years, including being the New Zealand representative to the International Bioethics Board. The International Council of Nurses, representing nurses and nursing in 118 countries, recommended in 1995 that cultural safety be included in the education programmes of all national nursing associations. Just weeks before her death, Irihapeti was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to nursing and Maori health.

Irihapeti was diagnosed as having cancer eight years ago but continued to work at an astounding pace. Her doctorate, “Cultural Safety and Nursing Education in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu” (http://culturalsafety.massey.ac.nz/>), was completed just months before her death.

Irihapeti Merenia Ramsden, nurse and healthcare campaigner New Zealand (b 1946; PhD), d 5 April 2003.

[Lis Ellison-Loschmann]