UBC Medicine promises changes amid push for Indigenous reconciliation

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – UBC’s faculty of medicine is committing to the Calls to Action outlined by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The faculty says training more Indigenous doctors and professionals is just one of the many ways we can bring about changes in the system.

On Friday, the medical school promised to do its part to bring meaningful and beneficial change. UBC’s dean of medicine is also issuing a formal apology on behalf of the faculty for its contributions to past and present harms to Indigenous peoples.

“The Faculty deeply respects the important work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and recognizes the potential transformational power the Calls to Action hold. We stand ready to play our part in responding to these Calls, especially those which pertain to Indigenous health and wellness,” reads the faculty’s response.

Join us on Friday, June 25 as we launch and reflect upon the Faculty of Medicine’s Response to the TRC’s Calls to Action.

Register and find more information here: https://t.co/ijEc04Fkdj pic.twitter.com/apUxzFarAN

— UBC Medicine (@UBCmedicine) June 18, 2021

The department says its future activities will be guided by several Calls to Action, such as 18 through 24, but particularly 22, 23, and 24, of the TRC.

They call for those who can effect change in the health-care system to “recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices and use them in the treatment of Aboriginal patients in collaboration with Aboriginal healers and Elders where requested by Aboriginal patients.”

The Calls to Action also push for all levels of government to increase the number of Indigenous professionals in the health-care sector, as well as ensure the retention of these individuals, provide cultural competency training for all professionals, and call on all medical and nursing schools to require students take a course focused on Aboriginal health issues. Those educational pieces are to include the history and legacy of the residential school system, the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices.

Dr. Nadine Caron, a member of the Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation and the co-director of UBC’s Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health, says racism in the health education and health-care systems is something that would be addressed by committing to culturally responsible and safe training.

“…so Indigenous students, physicians, health professionals and staff alike feel safe in their working environments and in the environment they provide for patients and families,” said Caron, who is also special advisor on Indigenous health to the dean.

“I am confident in the culture shift that we will witness in medicine, both at UBC and with external partners and hospitals in which faculty and trainees do research, work and interact,” Caron added, noting she is seeing a larger cultural shift in the industry and research.

Related articles:

• Is this the beginning of Canada’s reckoning over Indigenous relations?

• 751 unmarked graves found at former residential school in Saskatchewan

The faculty’s response is to what it calls the “emerging truth about the harms inflicted on Indigenous people” by Canada’s colonial past. It comes after remains of hundreds of Indigenous people, some children as young as three, were discovered at two former residential school sites, in B.C. and Saskatchewan.

The first discovery, made in Kamloops in May, sparked renewed calls for change across the country, including calls for Canada to implement recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The faculty says the “painful reminder of the reality and horror” of the residential school system, as well as the intent of genocide behind it, demands tangible commitments.

You can read the faculty’s full response here.