Cultural Safety and Equity in Surgical Pathways for New Zealand Māori: An Integrative Literature Review.

This article focuses on how Māori cultural safety is incorporated within surgical care pathways in Aotearoa/New Zealand and identifies systemic barriers and enablers to equitable Indigenous health outcomes. An integrative review of 11 peer-reviewed studies from New Zealand and Australia revealed that institutional racism and prevailing models of care contribute to persistent inequities in access to and quality of surgical care for Māori. The findings emphasize the need for system-level transformation grounded in Māori worldviews, including principles such as institutional commitment, barrier reduction, cultural training, whānau (extended family) engagement, and Indigenous-led hospital design to achieve culturally safe and equitable surgical outcomes. The review highlights that culturally safe care requires health services to be designed in partnership with Māori, consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), and that embedding Māori and Indigenous models of care improves trust, communication, and patient-centeredness across surgical pathways.