ALLEGED HOSPITAL RACISM RAISES MANY QUESTIONS
The day began with cancellation of a media conference on how COVID-19 has affected B.C. Indigenous communities.
No explanation was given for dropping a briefing that would have featured Health Minister Adrian Dix, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Dr. Shannon Mcdonald, acting chief medical officer for the First Nations health authority.
But an hour later came word of a different media conference.
Gone from the lineup were Drs. Henry and Mcdonald. Now the event was to be a solo turn for Health Minister Dix “who will respond to serious allegations of racist practices in B.C.’S health-care system.”
Serious, indeed.
“Last night I was made aware of serious allegations of racist and completely abhorrent practices in an emergency room or emergency rooms in B.C.,” Dix advised reporters shortly after 10 a.m. Friday.
“The allegation is that a game is being played to guess the blood alcohol level of patients in emergency rooms, in particular with Indigenous people and perhaps others,” the health minister continued. “If true, it’s intolerable, unacceptable and racist and, of course, affected profoundly patient care.”
Dix explained that he’d been tipped to the allegation Thursday night by deputy health minister Stephen Brown.
Brown had been given a heads up by Daniel Fontaine, the CEO of Metis Nation B.C., about a news release his organization would be putting out Friday.
“Racist ‘game’ played by hospital staff in B.C. is unacceptable,” read the headline on the release. “Emergency room staff regularly play ‘price is right’ when predicting blood alcohol level of Indigenous patients.”
The Metis were planning to release their version at 10:30 a.m. Dix’s media conference at 10:15 a.m. was effectively a pre-emptive strike, allowing the health minister to announce a response before the allegation had been aired publicly.
“I have appointed Mary Ellen Turpel-lafond to investigate the facts and make recommendations,” he told reporters, referring to the former child and youth representative who is now a law professor at the University of B.C. “I think she has the credibility to lead the investigation and will do an excellent job.”
But as Dix fielded followup questions from reporters, he didn’t have much more to say.
He’d referred to a game being played in an emergency room or rooms: How many ERS and where were they located? Had any health-care workers been suspended for playing the game?
But the health minister wasn’t able to answer any of those questions.
“These issues came to my attention last night, and we’re taking the steps we’ve taken to investigate to determine the facts and then to take action,” he told reporters. “What we’re asking Ms. Turpel-lafond to do is to seek the facts and to assist us in making recommendations to go forward.”
Why was he reluctant to disclose even the name of the health region where this game was allegedly being played?
“I’m not reluctant,” replied Dix.
“What I want to do is establish all the facts. The allegations are sufficient to require an investigation. But that investigation will determine all the facts, and it’s important to allow that to happen.”
The basis for his hesitation became evident when the Metis Nation put out the release containing what their organization knew about the blood-alcohol guessing game.
It said that in a recent training session for health-care workers on how to overcome racism toward Indigenous people, “a program participant disclosed a common game played within B.C. hospital emergency rooms, where physicians, nurses and other staff try to guess the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of Indigenous patients.”
The winner would be the participant who “guesses closest to the BAC without going over.”
That’s the extent of the allegation as communicated in the news release. No word on where the game was played, how often, when or by whom. Nor was Metis Nation CEO Fontaine aware of any of those details when I spoke to him Friday.
So a single allegation — very disturbing but lacking in detail — from a whistleblower in one training session.
No wonder Dix says the first job for Turpel-lafond is to determine the facts. But if she does find that the blood-alcohol guessing game was being played in even one ER in B.C., the public should have no doubt that “action will follow.”
Other causes for concern emerged from two reports that the Metis Nation released Friday, documenting the harm done by “anti-indigenous racism in the health-care system” and recommending ways to overcome it. Together those reports could prove politically problematic for the New Democrats. They were completed under the auspices of the provincial health authority in March 2019.
Turpel-lafond will surely be reviewing how the government responded to the recommendations and whether it was sufficient.
Dix promised that she will be given a free hand and the time she needs to do the job. “You can expect that the recommendations that Ms. Turpel-lafond makes will be followed.”
Dix’s caution contrasted with the comments from Premier John Horgan Friday.
“I am outraged by reports of ugly, anti-indigenous, racist behaviour at multiple health-care facilities in B.C.,” said Horgan via a statement from his office.
“This behaviour degrades the standards and provisions of health care in our province. It cannot stand. There is no excuse. There is no explaining this away.”
Unless the allegation turns out to be unfounded, a possibility that seems to have occurred to Dix although not to his boss, the premier.
Dix’s caution contrasted with the comments from Premier John Horgan Friday.