SYSTEMIC RACISM
Report slams health care
An Indigenous woman with a brain aneurysm who felt ill after surgery was told by a nurse it was because “you people drink too much.”
A Métis woman in her 60s was septic and had an anaphylactic reaction, but was nonetheless ordered by an ambulance paramedic to “get up” because it was assumed she wasn't really ill.
An Indigenous man fell and cracked his pelvis, but nurses at the hospital thought he was drunk and phoned police to arrest him.
Those were just some of the stories cited by B.C.'s former children's representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, in a report Monday that concluded the province's health care system has a deep undercurrent of systemic racism, discrimination and bias in how it treats Indigenous patients.
“We have a major problem with Indigenous-specific racism and prejudice in B.C. health care,” she said.
The scathing 236-page report prompted Health Minister Adrian Dix to offer an “unequivocal apology” to First Nations and Métis people for the health care system's failings, before creating five new Aboriginal liaison positions to each health authority and naming a new associate deputy minister of health in charge of addressing the problem head-on.
“The situation as it exists, and as is depicted in the details of this report, cannot stand,” Dix said. “The core of our response will be action — action to implement the recommendations, action to ensure that Indigenous leaders are fully included in any response, action to see that change happens.”
Turpel-Lafond, a former judge, was hired in June to investigate allegations that some health care workers in B.C. hospital emergency rooms had been playing racist games involving guessing the blood alcohol level of Indigenous patients.
“After a thorough investigation, I have found no evidence to substantiate the allegation that there is a Price Is Right game being played in B.C. hospital emergency departments in any co-ordinated or organized way,” she said. “If it did happen in the past, I do not believe it is happening today.”
However, her mandate also allowed her to investigate the larger issue of racism in health care.
Turpel-Lafond examined 185,000 health care outcomes, received thousands of survey responses and conducted 150 “key informant interviews” in which she granted individuals confidentiality to protect them from a widespread fear of reprisal that she noted among patients and staff.
Her report found “widespread stereotyping, racism and profiling of Indigenous people,” racism that limited a person's access to medical treatment, racism that disproportionately affected Indigenous women and girls, racism that discriminated against Indigenous health care workers and students, and racism magnified by the public health emergency of COVID-19.
“Literally, the report includes multiple comments that I heard of people saying: `I would rather die and not get the needed health care treatment than go back into that system and get it,'” she said. “And that's a very significant problem.”
Turpel-Lafond recommended more training, whistleblower protection for health care workers who report racism, integration of Indigenous health knowledge into the system, more accountability for eliminating racism and more Indigenous structures and roles in decision-making.
The First Nations Leadership Council called the racism outlined in the report “appalling” and demanded that government implement the report's 24 recommendations immediately. Dix said he and Premier John Horgan would develop a plan to do so.
Daniel Fontaine, CEO of Métis Nation B.C., which took the original emergency room game concerns to government, said he was pleased with the report, but shocked at the stories Turpel-Lafond uncovered.
“Every time I read a story, I didn't think it could get any worse,” he said. “At some point, you just read them and just keep giving your head a shake and think how can these things keep happening?
“There were so many just horrifying stories of tales of people who had to experience that and should never have to experience that again.”
Turpel-Lafond said her report was not about naming and shaming health care workers, or calling for discipline. Instead, she said it was about starting a process to acknowledge and name the racism, and begin to move forward.
“I do feel very encouraged,” she said. “I know it is deeply rooted. But we have to begin somewhere. And today is the beginning.”