Exploring why and how encounters with the Norwegian health-care system can be considered culturally unsafe by North Sami-speaking patients and relatives: A qualitative study based on 11 interviews.

BACKGROUND: Citizens of Norway have free and equal access to healthcare. Nurses are expected to be culturally sensitive and have cultural knowledge in encounters with patients. Culturally safe care is considered both a process and an outcome, evaluated by whether the patients feel safe, empowered and cared for, or not. All patients request equal access to quality care in Norway, also Sami patients. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study is to identify whether Sami patients and relatives feel culturally safe in encounters with healthcare, and if not, what are the main concerns. METHODS: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews in the North Sami language, with 11 North Sami participants.The transcribed data were analysed through a lens of cultural safety by content analysis. FINDINGS: Data analysis explicated themes including: use of Sami language, Sami identity and cultural practices, connections to positive health outcomes to enhance cultural safe care and well-being for North-Sami people encountering the Norwegian health-care system. CONCLUSION: Culturally safe practices at the institutional, group and individual levels are essential to the well-being of Sami people. An engagement in culturally safe practices will facilitate (or) fulfil political and jurisdictional promises made to the Sami people, consequently improving positive impact of healthcare.

Symposium on "parental education" at the ICCH17.

This symposium report provides a brief overview of the six programmes and studies on parental education and maternal health services within the circumpolar region presented in the symposium "parental education" at the 17th International Congress of Circumpolar Health in Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2018.

At what cost to health? Tlicho women's medical travel for childbirth.

Medical travel policies are instituted in all rural and remote areas of Canada as a means of providing universal health care services to residents. These policies are framed, developed and implemented from a colonial perspective and require re-examination through a more inclusive and collaborative postcolonial lens. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the medical travel policy for childbirth in Canada's Northwest Territories from a postcolonial perspective and in consideration of the cultural safety of pregnant Tlicho women. The context within which Tlicho birthing and this policy thrives is reviewed along with the exploration of future possibilities. Personal, socioeconomic, political and legal factors surrounding birthing are highlighted. It is anticipated, that by illuminating the oppressive and paternalistic nature of this childbirth policy, there will be heightened awareness that fosters transitions within the system to transform current risk discourse creating new possibilities for Tlicho women in the birth of their babies.

Colonialization: a health determinant for pregnant Dogrib women.

Childbirth for many Aboriginal women living in remote communities of the Northwest Territories, Canada, includes separation from their family and community for weeks at a time. This colonialization of childbirth, enforced for decades, is true for Dogrib Dene. Colonialization produces serious social consequences on the everyday lives of pregnant Aboriginal women, which results in lower health outcomes. This article provides a literature review of colonialization in Canada's far north establishing the position that colonialization is a determinant of health. The purpose of this article is to generate knowledge that will inform health professionals and ultimately reduce health disparities as experienced and evident among Dogrib women. By highlighting the concept of colonialization and establishing this concept as a determinant of health, nurses and midwives will identify disparities created through stressors of power and control. From there, culturally meaningful health promotion strategies will be developed and implemented within their nursing practice.