In October of this year, there was an appalling event in which an Indigenous mother of seven children who was dying in her hospital bed was victim to a slough of racial slurs directed toward her by the hospital staff. This took place in a Quebec hospital and the woman who experienced this was named Joyce Echaquan. She was a member of the Atikamekw Nation in southwestern Quebec.
Joyce passed away at the very young age of 37 years old. The hospital staff was providing care that was very limited considering they were calling her names.
It is very common for indigenous peoples in Quebec to experience racism by their healthcare providers. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is a group that documents such incidents and publishes reports about their prevalence. A common experience that indigenous people have is that when they visit the hospital, they are assumed to be drunks or drug addicts. Doctors have on multiple occasions based their treatment of the indigenous person based on an assumption that the person is intoxicated without taking any real medical actions in order to establish whether that is true.
In one particular incident in Winnipeg an Indigenous man sat in emergency hours until he passed away in the emergency room because the medical staff failed to care for him. They simply ignored his existence.
How to Approach the Issue of Racism Within the Healthcare System
Unarguably, part of healthcare professional training in Canada needs to include training in anti-racism. Healthcare professionals should be trained in Indigenous history, and the history of treaties between Indigenous people and settlers. Nurses, doctors, patient care assistants, and X-ray technicians alike should receive proper training in cultural competency. Relevant education for these professionals should include thorough understanding of the socio-economic factors that impact Indigenous people’s lives in modern day Canada. This education should include understanding how poverty impacts this cultural group. They should be trained in better understanding the nuances of different Indigenous cultures, including different social norms within different Indigenous cultures. In general, healthcare professionals should be well versed in their understanding of how racism affects Indigenous people and also, as importantly, how to address their Indigenous patients with sensitivity toward this reality. Equally as important as it is for healthcare professionals to receive training in anti-racism, is the necessity of receiving training in putting this knowledge into action. Healthcare professionals who do not have the common sense not to refrain from engaging in discriminatory behavior should receiving training in how to do so. They should be taught what not to say and what to say to Indigenous peoples as a part of their professional training.
