The province has launched an investigation into practices by ER staff after Health Minister Adrian Dix revealed the existence of a “game” played to guess the blood-alcohol level of largely Indigenous patients.
“If true, it is intolerable, unacceptable and racist,” said Dix in announcing the allegations Friday.
Dix did not reveal which health authorities or hospitals were involved in the incidents, citing a need to establish the facts beforehand.
Dix said the details of the alleged incidents came to his attention last night from “within the system” through both Deputy Minister of Health Stephen Brown and from the community.
The minister has appointed former judge and longtime children’s advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond to lead an investigation into the allegations, beginning Monday, June 22.
Turpel-Lafond will have the “authority and power to investigate as she sees fit” and will be tasked with getting to the bottom of what happened and will make recommendations based on what she finds, according to Dix.
The allegations were quickly denounced by Indigenous groups from across the province. In a press release from the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, executive director of the association Leslie Varley said there is “a lack of will to address systemic and specific racism towards Métis, First Nation and Inuit people.”
“We know that our people avoid hospitals because we are afraid of having a discriminatory encounter. This happens to the point where Indigenous people end up in emergency with extreme diagnosis, like cancer,” he said in a written statement.
Daniel Fontaine, the chief executive officer for the Métis Nation BC, characterized the alleged incidents as “disturbing” and called on the them to end immediately.
Both the BCAAFC and MNBC are calling on the Ministry of Health to accept a set of four recommendations, including:
- A public inquiry into Indigenous specific racism in health care in B.C with a focus on hospitals and emergency departments.
- Ensuring that all front-line staff are required to take mandatory First Nations, Métis and Inuit training that results in increased health professional personal accountability in the delivery of safe health care.
- A commitement to structural and systemic changes to dismantle indigenous specific racism to ensure culturally safe health care experiences for Indigenous people.
- Ensuring that Indigenous governments play a stronger role in the development and implementation of anti-racism programs and training throughout BC.
Dix said Turpel-Lafond’s investigation would seek to involve the input from Indigenous groups from across the province, including the First Nations Health Authority and the First Nations Health Council.
More than a single set of allegations, Dix pointed to the “racist game” as a clear sign of a long road not yet travelled towards reconciliation with Indigenous people in B.C.
“It tells us why we have so far to go. It tells us, as if we needed to know that, that we have systemic racism in this country.”
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