Abstract
Worldwide very few studies have focussed on immigrant women’s medicine-taking and healthcare practices for their families in a new country. It is imperative to understand what barriers they face, and how they navigate the new and different healthcare system in the host country.
In order to understand pre-migration experiences and how they might affect migrants, my first study used semi-structured interviews and focus groups to explore women’s role in health and medicine practices of older people and children in Pakistan. Data were collected from women who cared for older people and children through eight focus groups (four from rural and four from urban areas) and 40 semi-structured interviews, (20 from rural areas and 20 from urban areas) in the Sargodha district. I concluded that informal women caregivers play a significant role in decision-making about healthcare access and medicine-taking practices for older people and children. Treating illnesses at home with allopathic medicines is a common practice in both urban and rural settings. However, caregivers are not aware of the risk associated with a delay in health-seeking. This could be tackled through educating women caregivers. To better understand Pakistani immigrant mothers’ experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of medicine-taking and healthcare practices for their children in New Zealand, I interviewed 23 Pakistani migrant mothers in Wellington city. I found that in most cases, it was the mother who decided when to take children to GP. Most mothers first treated their children at home for two to three days. Self-medication and home remedies were considered a primary treatment for children before taking them to a GP, and there was underutilisation of healthcare services due to their previous experiences, dissatisfaction, long waiting times at after-hours/emergency departments, and lack of information on New Zealand’s healthcare system.
For further investigation of the gaps in health literacy and underutilisation of health services, an online questionnaire was developed and administered using Qualtrics© software. Closed- and open-ended questions were asked about the challenges new Pakistani immigrants face when entering a new healthcare system. A total of 200 respondents (covering 881 family members) answered most questions. New immigrants considered it difficult to access information about medical centres, GP registration, subsidies for medicines, maternity services, emergency/ after-hours services, immunization, disability services, mental health for children and adults as well as dental care for children. Most participants stated that they obtained information about the healthcare system through friends and Google. New immigrants particularly felt they needed more information during their first years after arrival in New Zealand. Lastly, to test Facebook as a suitable platform for conveying and increasing the healthcare literacy of Pakistani immigrants, an intervention was conducted. I ran a Facebook page for Pakistani immigrants for six months and uploaded information related to New Zealand healthcare in the form of links, images, videos and text. During this period 72 posts were posted. The engagement rate for most of the posts was high so it was concluded that Facebook can be used to increase the healthcare information for new immigrants. The engagement rate might be higher if the content was in their first language (Urdu) to attract new immigrants. However, COVID-19 adversely impacted the intervention as there were no new immigrants coming to New Zealand during that period.