Matthew Barlow

Yesterday, a new report was released on the plight of Canada’s aboriginal peoples in the healthcare system.  The title, “First Peoples, Second Class Treatment,” perhaps says all you need to know.  The CBC also posted a story on-line about the experiences of several aboriginal people vis-à-vis healthcare in Victoria, British Columbia.  A couple of the “highlights”:

• Michelle Labrecque went to the Royal Jubilee Hospital complaining of severe stomach pain in 2008.  A doctor gave her a prescription.  When she got home and opened the paper with the prescription on it, it was a drawing of a beer bottle with a circle slashed through it.
• Carol McFadden went to the doctor with a lump in her breast, only to be told she could’ve gone to mammography herself.  She now has Stage 4 breast cancer, and it has spread to her liver.
• McFadden reports that whilst some doctors have been compassionate, others have been rude and brusque, to the point where they kick her bed when they want her attention, and continually asking her if she drinks or does drugs.

I recently read Joanna Burke’s book, The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers.  In it, she talks about the body in pain, and the responses thereto, both from the victims of the pain, as well as the medical profession.  Nineteenth century doctors, insofar as they discussed the colonialized body, they dismissed the idea that indigenous bodies could feel pain in the same way that an upper-class British man could.   For that matter, they also argued that working-class men had a higher tolerance to pain.  Their recommendation was to try to take the body in pain seriously, but not to be sympathetic, to be brusque when talking to the victim.  We live in the twenty-first century.  Why are aboriginal peoples treated this way by doctors?

Of course I know why, Canada is a deeply, deeply racist society vis-à-vis the aboriginal population.  It is acceptable in Canada to be openly racist against First Nations people.  I wish I could say I was surprised by the findings of this report.  I am not.