Aboriginal Canadians tell about their relatives’ experiences of racial discrimination: no one in the hospital nearly died
Overseas Network, June 29th. On the 26th local time, the Canadian “Globe and Mail” published an article entitled “It is common for aboriginal patients to suffer from racial discrimination and neglect.” The author of the article, Canadian aboriginal doctor James Makokis pointed out that Aboriginal patients have suffered long-term neglect and racial discrimination in the Canadian medical system, leading to many unnecessary deaths.
The article first mentioned Joyce, a 37-year-old native Canadian woman. Joyce recorded a video before his death in a Quebec hospital. In this video, she once screamed in pain and claimed that the medical staff had abused her. “The Joyce incident made Canadians and the whole world see deep-rooted racism and substandard care, and this is very familiar to Canadian aborigines.” The author claimed that Joyce’s death was caused by underlying rheumatic valvular disease. The cause of rheumatic heart disease is quite common among indigenous people, and is often related to poverty and lack of medical care.
The author’s uncle suffers from rheumatic heart disease. In the second year of the doctor’s internship, the author visited his uncle in a hospital in rural Alberta and witnessed the degree of medical discrimination faced by the aborigines. “Whether it is in a small town hospital near the Aboriginal Reserve or a large hospital in an urban area, Aboriginal people often encounter racism. No wonder we often hear in the Aboriginal community that only when you want to die or want to’children’ be You will only go to certain hospitals if you are robbed. The medical system does not adequately meet the needs of the indigenous people, and they often fail to get proper care or even die early.”
Mark Keith went on to mention that when he went to the hospital to visit his uncle with a stethoscope, he had prepared for the worst. “When I walked into his room, I was shocked to see him sitting in a chair, bending over. Gasping. I listened to his chest with my stethoscope and found that he had fluid accumulation in his lungs and a heart problem. The blood began to flow back. However, he did not have a heart monitor, no oxygen supply, no heart medicine, and he was still alive. In the room away from the nursing station. The medical staff gave him only a small dose of Tylenol. He has been sitting like this for a week.”
Mark Keith then asked the nurse to call the doctor on duty, but the other party said she would decide “when to call a doctor”. The doctor on duty never checked the room. “My uncle needs to be transferred to the cardiology room of the tertiary care center, otherwise he will die. This requires the consent of a cardiologist at the receiving hospital. I don’t believe that they (the rural hospital) will make a referral, so I went to do it myself. . Finally, when my uncle arrived in Edmonton’s heart disease ward, he was experiencing heart failure and liver failure. If I hadn’t taken special measures to transfer him, he might have died.”
The author pointed out at the end of the article that racism and systemic prejudice are disproportionately affecting the aboriginal people of Canada, causing more health problems and unnecessary deaths. Both Aboriginal patients and Aboriginal health insurance providers have experienced racism. This type of abuse is consistent with Canada’s long history of systematic oppression of Aboriginals. Obviously, Canada’s current healthcare system needs to change. (Overseas Net Zhang Ni)