Cultural Barriers in Healthcare

This assignment examines the impact of culture on healthcare through a personal experience with a Maori patient named Harriet. The student describes Harriet's initial resistance to medical care due to cultural beliefs surrounding pain and privacy, highlighting the challenges faced by healthcare providers in bridging cultural gaps. The assignment emphasizes the importance of open communication and understanding cultural sensitivities for effective healthcare delivery.

Running head: REFLECTION 1
Reflection
Student’s Name
Date of Submission

REFLECTION 2
The Maori people have a rich culture that may hamper the offering of healthcare services.
Yesterday, I had an experience with Harriet (client), and her husband Antony in the hospital
ward. Harriet had been admitted following her diagnosis with cholera. However, her husband
had taken too long to decide on whether to take her to the hospital or not. At the moment she was
brought, she was so dehydrated, weak and unconscious, necessitating a need for emergency
admission.
While taking the patient history, I noted that she was so conserved, because she ignored me at
the first instant. In fact, Harriet turned and faced the opposite side of the ward-bed away from
me. At this point, her husband was still seated beside the bed and could not intervene. When I
asked him to convince her wife to be cooperative, he said, “You are a stranger and furthermore
my wife can only speak to Maori, and not all men”.
I later came to remember that the Maori people are so conserved to their culture. Moreover, they
take pain as normal and believe in coping with pain and keeping it private. Later, he convinced
Harriet to be open and I was able to take her medical history, recommend tests and later I got
drugs for her.
This is when I recalled some class lecture on the effects of culture on healthcare delivery. Later
on, during Harriet’s discharge, I spoke to her and her husband on the significance of being open
to a healthcare giver in order to get maximal care benefit. I also asked them to ignore the cultural
belief that pain is private because if they would have stayed at home longer, Harriet would have
succumbed to cholera.