The IWK Health Centre is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all patients and families, where we strive for diversity to be respected, embraced and valued in all that we say and do.
In keeping with our commitment, we have engaged our community stakeholders to better understand the ways in which the Health Centre can serve our diverse communities, to learn from the stories being told by community members, and to engage in a conversation that is honest, approachable, informal and allows the community members to set the agenda.
As part of the IWK Health Centre’s current Strategic Plan, a diversity and inclusion strategy was created by a project team in August 2009. This strategy led to the identification of a diversity and inclusion vision for the IWK, as well as an IWK position statement on diversity, inclusion and culturally competent care. Please click here to view the position statement.
Culturally Competent Care
Culture is much more than ethnicity – it shapes the way we view the world. Cultural competence requires a fundamental change in the way people think about, understand and interact with the world around them.
The IWK Health Centre is committed to providing culturally competent care. As an organization that is striving to be culturally competent the IWK recognizes and respects the cultural and personal values of its patients and families.
Culturally competent care requires a commitment from all health care providers to understand and be responsive to the different attitudes, values, languages and beliefs of our patients and their families based on their culture and lived experiences. The IWK Health Centre is committed to ensuring that our programs and staff demonstrate culturally competent and inclusive care, and advocate for the health and equity of our increasingly diverse Maritime communities.
Approximately 300 IWK staff, physician and volunteers have received some type of Cultural Competence training since training began in 2009 (an additional 300 have been introduced to cultural competence through a general orientation session). In addition, a variety of awareness activities continue to take place with aim at increasing knowledge of other cultures.