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Dedication
Irihapeti Merenia Ramsden
Vicki Smye
Assistant Professor, New Investigator, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Article Text
I did not know Irihapeti Ramsden. I am a Canadian nurse researcher and educator influenced by 'the legacy of cultural safety.'
Irihapeti Ramsden, Maori nurse educator and scholar, is best known to us in nursing for her commitment to social justice in Aotearoa /New Zealand. As part of that commitment, in collaboration with other Maori nurses, she developed the concept of cultural safety as part of her unremitting campaign for the specific health care needs of Indigenous peoples.
Cultural safety provides a critical cultural lens for addressing health care inequities. It reminds us that we are all bearers of culture, a 'culture' that influences the care we provide. It demands that we address the power relationships between the nurse and those they serve. It calls us to understand and address the ongoing social, political, and historical processes that shape health care and the health of Indigenous peoples.
It is my belief that the broadest strength of this concept is its engagement as a moral and political discourse in nursing, and more broadly, in health care.
At the Grace Neil Memorial Lecture Series to commemorate 100 years of nursing registration in New Zealand, Dr Ramsden said:
If there are three kinds of people; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who never knew what hit them - let nurses be in the first category.
(Lis Ellison-Loschmann
and CPHR,
http://culturalsafety.massey.ac.nz,
26 April 2006)
Dr Irihapeti Ramsden, nurse, scholar, educator, friend of many, writer, mother, grandmother, made things happen. It is a privilege to honour her here.
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