Read this article before continuing reading this post. Did you read it? It's interesting, isn't it? I remember reading about something similar in Japan. As you can probably imagine the Japanese systems have very strict rules concerning allowing foreign nurses to work there. They have to pass exams and show competent Japanese language ability to even get a look in. It is fair enough as medical care is not a laughing matter and if you can't communicate effectively with the people you are supposed to be looking after then all sorts of trouble will raise it's ugly head.
I can imagine vividly the types of scenarios that the article is talking about. Unfortunately a lot of the discrimination would come from elderly patients who don't have experience of interacting on a daily basis with people that don't look like them or don't talk like them, i.e. they have some kind of an accent that they are just not used to. This is not an excuse for their behaviour, I am just speculating what is going on.
The alleged discrimination by other members of staff is just an example of small town New Zealand intolerance. We like to think of ourselves as been a multi-cultural society but we are not really. The majority of New Zealanders are happy in their own little worlds and any foreigners need not apply for entrance into that world.
What are the solutions for this problem? (Admittedly I have never worked in the medical industry so I don't have first hand knowledge of what is going on or what the conditions are like so these are just my ideas.)
1. Only allow New Zealanders to work as nurses. (Not really solving the problem as their obviously a shortage of nurses and of course a New Zealand is not necessarily white. So, sorry Mr. Racist Patient, go and live somewhere where only white people live. But do you know what, you probably won't be able to understand the language in that area.)
2. Conduct language classes for the nurses. By language classes I don't mean a two hour a day four week course. No sir. I remember talking to some people at the New Zealand embassy in Tokyo and they told me before they started their posting they had a year studying for eight hours a day. Now that is a real training course.
3. PAY MORE MONEY. Yes, pay more money that way you are going to get the more accomplished foreign nurses coming to New Zealand instead of other destinations and also more people will want to join the industry if they can see that they will be paid more for their skills, training and experience.
4. Send your current New Zealand nurses overseas. Maybe to places like India, Thailand, The Philippines just to show them what it is like and how the nurses here in New Zealand are treated and this will give them another perspective and hopefully and thorough understanding and respect for the difficulties foreign nurses have in New Zealand.
5. Promote the best nurses irrespective of race or background. I think the racist nurses will not be the best ones anyway. They are probably lazy and vindictive and they shouldn't be there anyway. This will help weed out the not so good ones.
6. Maybe the co-workers just don't know each other very well. Maybe they don't want to which automatically brings distrust and suspicion. If they took the time to get to know each other then they might find they have things in common instead of just nursing.
7. This one could be controversial but could the migrant nurses do a Billy T. James and make fun of the stereotypes that we have of their culture? That is a difficult one but it could work. Although on second thought it is a medical institution and how far can you go?
8. Sometimes it's got to do with leadership. A good leader will bring a fragmented group together. A bad, jealous, incompetent leader will drive a group apart.
9. Fire anyone who is displaying anti-social behaviour. Ideally you want to solve these problems with limited casualties but that isn't always possible.
10. Don't care about it. I know this isn't really a solution, however, you are always going to have people who have conservative views and who don't mind sharing them. Also, you will have people who are jealous of their co-workers.
There you go. A little difficult one for the end of the month. Some of you maybe thinking "what does he know? He's a white male living in a predominately white country." True, it's just my opinion and without those we might as well go and live in a dictatorship.
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