Cultural Safety: Making healthcare safe for Indigenous patients

When you get sick and call an ambulance or you make your way to the local ER, the assumption is you're heading to a safe place. They'll greet you, treat you and heal you. But it's not something all Canadians can take for granted -- we were yet again reminded of that yet again in September, when Joyce Equachan, a 37-year old mother of five and member of the Atikamekw Nation, recorded and made public racist taunts she endured from staff at a hospital in Quebec. This week, White Coat Black Art revisits a show about the San'yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Program in BC, which aims to teach health-care workers to recognize and respect the history of Indigenous peoples, so they can access care without fear of being discriminated against. "It's the hardest conversation we can have as Canadians," says Cheryl Ward, who helped design the course. Dr. Marcia Anderson, a public health physician with the WInnipeg Regional Health Authority also speaks to the show about why she brought the course to Winnipeg, and her own family's experience with racism in the health-care system.