An independent report has found “widespread” and “insidious” racism against Indigenous people in B.C.’s healthcare system.
The report was released today by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, an Indigenous lawyer and B.C.’s first Representative for Children and Youth in 2005.
She was hired in June after Health Minister Adrian Dix revealed “abhorrent” allegations of a racist game being played in a B.C. emergency room, where staff were alleged to be guessing the blood alcohol content of Indigenous patients.
Turpel-Lafond says the investigation found no evidence to substantiate those allegations of the racist guessing game, alleged to have been called The Price is Right.” And, “if such games did occur in the past, they are not occurring today,” the report says.
She says she had full cooperation from everyone surrounding the allegation, doing direct interviews with sources. She says there was evidence of guessing the blood alcohol level of Indigenous patients, but says any cases were not a highly-coordinated game.
But in her report, several thousand Indigenous residents were part of a confidential survey that found “a lack of cultural safety and hundreds of examples of prejudice and racism throughout the entire B.C. health care system.” It also says Indigenous women and girls have been “seriously and disproportionally impacted.” The report also examined the outcomes of 185,000 Indigenous patients in hospitals.
Turpel-Lafond says 84 per cent of Indigenous respondents said they experienced some form of racism in the healthcare system, and more than half of Indigenous healthcare workers said they experienced racial prejudice at work, mostly in the form of discriminatory comments by colleagues.
Further, more than one-third of non-Indigenous healthcare workers surveyed say they’ve witnessed racism, and 13 per cent said they made racist comments towards colleagues.
In trying to answer why the racism is happening, Turpel-Lafond says employees often aren’t willing to speak up to racism, and says leadership is lacking to stop racism that is deeply rooted in the healthcare system.
As a result of the findings, Turpel-Lafond has made 24 recommendations to the B.C. government to improve beliefs, behaviours and systems in B.C. healthcare. She says some can be brought in immediately and others are long-term systemic changes.
