Indigenous

CMA’s apology to Indigenous Peoples rings hollow

Sept. 30 marks our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The CMA can only play a role in healing wounds if it openly reflects on what continuously harms Indigenous people so specifically and systemically in this country.

Privilege. Blame. Allyship. Reflecting on reconciliation as a non-Indigenous physician

CMA president Joss Reimer writes, "As individuals, we may not be responsible for what happened in the past. But we are responsible for what happens in the future."

Backlash against call for equity in medicine is misguided

A backlash against EDIA (equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility) is gripping Canadian medicine. The reasons for this backlash are complex but ultimately misguided.

‘It’s time to do something’: Climate change endangering remote First Nations communities

The Anisininew leaders have urged governments to support the region by injecting financial and emergency resources, and directly empowering them to rebuild and maintain vital winter road infrastructure.

Come for the black bears and huskies. Stay to ‘transform how we deliver health care’

"Self-determination doesn't happen when all of your clinicians are flying up from the south, working for a week and then flying home.” Medical resident Maria Raveendran writes on her experience working in the remote northern Ontario community of Moose Factory Island.

Decolonizing sexual and reproductive health: A conversation led by the Period Priority Project

The Period Priority Project aims to breakdown and unpack the nuances of colonial period shame and start new conversations about reproductive justice.

‘A huge benefit’: Advances in blood products may save lives in rural communities

Blood supplies in rural areas can be low, leaving trauma patients at risk. But innovations in freeze-dried plasma could help save lives.

Indigenous-led solutions counter a diabetes epidemic

Health Canada frameworks can only go so far in addressing the diabetes epidemic. But Indigenous groups have put forward community-specific solutions to address some of the key contributors to diabetes, including diet and lifestyle.

Woefully inadequate: Dearth of funding for biomedical health research reflects our environmental racism

Biomedical research policy needs to begin addressing environmental racism and justice and expand funded research for climate change, environmental and planetary health.

On this Orange Shirt Day: What has changed?

Today marks our second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It has been two years since the death of Joyce Echaquan; 16 months since the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc community confirmed long-held knowledge that hundreds of little children were buried in unmarked graves on the grounds. Since then, the haunting reality of more than a thousand additional radar “pings,” with each ping confirming the body of a little child lying in an unmarked grave, on the very grounds of the school they were forced to attend. So much has happened . . . but what has changed?

Rural health care: How to get it right

Rural citizens are generally older, sicker and poorer than the rest of the population, and so have greater need for care if they are to achieve health outcomes equitable to the rest of the population. We have a system that is failing rural Canadians, and it must change. But what if we got it right?

Access to virtual care highlights urban/rural divide

The move to virtual care is leaving some communities behind. For rural Canadians, especially those in remote and Indigenous communities, there are obstacles to seeing a doctor both in person and online.

‘They’ve grown up disconnected’: Saskatchewan programs aim to reunite Indigenous families, support vulnerable mothers-to-be

The Cowessess First Nation's family care system reunites Indigenous parents with their children, restores cultural connections and helps expectant and new mothers gain labour skills, financial literacy and find housing.

To tackle food insecurity, school adds hunting and fishing to reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic

Faced with rampant food insecurity in the Eel Ground First Nation, New Brunswick, one elementary school principal started the Kelulk Mijipjewe food program to provide nutritious meals and teach students about Indigenous food culture.

‘As a matter of policy, kids were hungry in residential schools’: The dark history of Canada’s food guide

Canada's Food Guide has its roots in controversial experiments conducted on Indigenous children and adults in the 1940's and 50's.

‘This is a place of healing’: The power of a sweat-lodge ceremony

Once a custom practised mainly by the Lakota Indigenous tribes, sweat lodges are growing in popularity in British Columbia, cropping up on many rural properties and Indigenous lands as group gatherings and tourists promise to return now that the pandemic is receding.

Challenging oppressive maternity health care in Canada

Improving health care must begin by recognizing the interconnected webs of colonization woven into all health-care systems in Canada. A good place to start would be at the beginning – with maternity care and birth.

Ontario’s position on midwifery puts rural and Indigenous communities at risk

For the Ford government, midwives' demands for equitable pay are unacceptable. But instead of using tax dollars to fight midwives in court, Ford should recognize gender-based inequities, address the pay gap and invest in rural and northern midwifery programs.

Inuit communities bracing for return of RSV in babies

Health advocates are raising alarm that infants in Nunavut, and especially Inuit infants, face grave risks as a potent respiratory virus – deadlier than COVID-19 and influenza – re-emerges after a one-year hiatus. Health officials now fear serious outbreaks in Canada’s North.

‘We had to find our way in the dark’: Physician helps remote Sioux Lookout First Nations navigate through pandemic

Lloyd Douglas worked as part of the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority to protect Indigenous communities in northern Ontario from COVID-19. We're profiling him as a Pillar of the Pandemic.