Indigenous Health Assignment
Jasmeen Kaur
Practical Nursing, Durham College
Health and Healing, NURS 1521
Professor Doreen Kaneko
Feburary 18, 2023
Call to action I am using for this essay is #24 “We call upon medical and nursing schools in
Canada to require all students to take a course dealing with Aboriginal health issues,
including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, and Indigenous teachings and
practices. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict
resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.”
The call to actions were issued as the beliefs of Indigenous people were questioned and it put
a negative strain on the indigenous communities and their practices. The lasting effects of
residential schools on survivors and their families are acknowledged in the TRC calls to
action. The one I've chosen to discuss in this article argues that those in the medical field
should be educated and taught in incorporating cultural values as well as how to deal with
structural racism that occurs to indigenous people in the health care system since, on
occasion, they are denied services due to the difficulty of funding, which has serious
repercussions. This call to action is intended to ensure that no one is left behind when it
comes to healthcare and health care workers receiving education so they can comprehend the
perspectives, intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools, post-European
colonisation, and from where the trust-issues with modern practises originated. The majority
of us consider residential schools to be a thing of the past, but the final one wasn't closed until
1996, and many of the survivors are still struggling with the effects of it.
Nurses are huge part of any health-care system in the world and are in this position to work
collaboratively with others to solve the inequities in our healthcare system and aim for
improved, better health care for everyone. Nursing can adopt new concepts and approach"One World, One Health” (Premji & Hatfield, 2016). Nurses must learn to adapt indigenous
practices such as medicine wheel to use it as in holistic approach while treating first nation
people, they can also advocate to rally for Indigenous people across the nation for improving
the social determinants. As a nurse I will take holistic approach by applying my knowledge
and also making sure that I am at least educated enough to deliver knowledge and approach
Indigenous people in a way that they feel safe, heard and comfortable in my care. Before
taking PN program I wasn’t well aware of the things that happened to indigenous community
and had a little knowledge about the trauma they have to go through, being an immigrant, it
was so hard to adjust in a new environment so I can’t even imagine being on your own land
and with no regard for the consequences, colonialism nearly wiped out an indigenous
community by robbing them of their land, culture, and families (Henderson,2018).
By achieving this calls to action it will benefit Indigenous people as they will regain access to
modern as well as traditional methods. For an instance, the percentage for diseases is higher
in indigenous people as compared to non-indigenous, example as in diabetes first nation
people are 3-5% more in danger of having diabetes as compared to the later. Also with
achieving this call to action will increase trust, vulnerability and them being more open to the
new ideas or even trying to approach different types of treatments that they might be scared
to try if the health care professional they are seeing is not educated and has less information
about the culture.
The initiatives of doing Indigenous-led health partnerships also appears to be successful as
they collaborate with the traditional healing practices and western medicine eg. In Haidi
Gwaii, BC; 1999 Diabetes clinic was opened which offered traditional diet, plant medicines
and exercise programs which was considered successful.
In conclusion, I would say the intergenerational trauma that indigenous people had to go
through is very unfortunate and Canadians haven’t done justice towards the first-nation as
there are numerous people who still believe in the myths that First-nation people receive extra
benefits which isn’t true at all. We need to take holistic approach and try our best to help
these calls to action to be deemed successful.
Reference:
Barton, S (2019), Boucher,C (2019). Candian fundamentals of Nursing. Indigenous health: Mosby
Henderson, K. (2018, March). Understandings of Colonization on Indigenous Health.
College of Medicine. https://medicine.usask.ca/news/2018/mymd/understandings-ofcolonization-on-indigenous-health.php
NCBI - WWW Error Blocked Diagnostic. (n.d.).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7055951/ doi:10.1503/cmaj.190728