Discrimination upheld by the Canadian medical system

Introduction

In Canada, the medical system often tries to sell itself as a universally accessible health service. The implication of universality is psychologically misleading, as it points towards equal access to every medical procedure, for everyone. This however, is consistently proven to be false through personal stories, the existence of data full of biases, and evidence based research. The lack of equity within this system needs to be recognized, accepted, and changed to continue mending Canadian society and forging reconciliation deep within Canadian history. The following listing is limited, and should continue to grow as discrimination in this system is hard to find yet prevalent and power hungry.

Medical discrimination

Based on race and culture

Racial discrimination within the Canadian healthcare system is prevalent. It has led to death because medical practitioners are faster to assume medical conditions based on few symptoms when people from certain races are involved. Such as has happened in the Rankin Inlet health centre when an Inuit man was treated for alcohol poisoning when he had not been drinking, and later died of a heart attack. Assumptions on patients' lifestyle based on judgements and prejudices drawn from a person's race is one form of discrimination offered by the healthcare system, but, sadly, it does not stop there.

Western colonial medical practices impose their own understanding of "good medical practices". Though sometimes the healthcare system has genuine intentions of helping others, there is so much ignorance in how their patients want and need to be treated that harm is done in copious amounts. An example for this is how the healthcare system treats Inuit individuals. Since Inuit communities are usually found in marginalized places, those seeking to be treated need to travel far, and many times they are not sure of what their treatment will consist of and how long it would take. Canada's healthcare system remains ignorant of racial and cultural health practices, thus dissuading many peoples, Inuit individuals included, from being treated under it. This tends to be due to the duality that body and mind tend to have in Westernized societies way of thinking, which tend to see body health, spirit health and mind health as different things. This causes medical treatments to be addressing physicality alone instead of spirit and mind as well while holding rituals that help heal the oneness that body, spirit and mind are . In this way, discrimination arrives in another form, the imposition of Western stories of existence, and ways of being, as Truth, and those of other cultures as falsehood.

Wounds being healed by those who have withstanded the most are held within sacred spaces of ritual and community. That is one of the reasons why the First Nations Health Authority is so vitally important. It provides the spaces to hold ceremonies and rituals for healing in non-dual-western ways of thought, were land, body, mind and spirit are seen as a single entity that needs healing.

Based on gender and sexual orientation

It is important to recognize that the medical health system in Canada is plagued with lack of equality and equity in the how it treats its doctors based on their gender. Female doctors are much more prone to burnouts, depression and suicidal thoughts than their male counterparts. An existing wage gap is in need of fixing just as much as is the difference of care that male doctors receive to that of other genders. The prevalence of discrimination towards doctors is important to recognize, and when it comes to gender we still see a colonial system that divides gender polarly, as can be seen in much (if not all) of the literature that talks about gender issues in the medical system only speak of the differences between female and male.

The discrimination based on gender does not stop there, but sadly seeps into the treatment of patients too. Several accounts point to women receiving worse care than their male counterparts. Their pains, symptoms, treatments and surgeries are taken less seriously. The extent of this is such that diseases and illnesses that are more prevalent in women than men are less researched, treated and recognized by Western normative medicine, and Canada falls right in there too. Examples of this are prevalent in the field with lack of study in fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, osteoarthritis and plenty other diseases have either not been studied enough or have not included women enough in their studies. This is deeply problematic as Western medical treatments tend to be so varied depending on the individuals reactions to drugs and different therapies provided. Therefore, not knowing the different effects that these treatments have on the female body, psyche and emotion is incredibly threatening to women's wellbeing and needs to be changed.

Similar to the above none normative Western groups, peoples in the LGBTQIA2 communities find themselves stigmatized, shamed upon, judged and even refused treatment. The limited access to and refusal of health services is one of the first barriers that people in these communities face. Yet, this marginalization causes internal doubts causing many to fear, and retrieve away from the medical system. This is incredibly negative as large amounts of people that need highly specific diagnosis and treatments are not capable of accessing and fearful of doing so on top of having to deal with the emotional and mental pressure that comes from being shunned by the society that surrounds them.

Based on socio-economic status

Though Canada's "universal" healthcare has many benefits for those with less income or liquidity it must be brought to light that unequal possibilities plague those said to be in the lower socio-economic strata. Studies have shown that individuals in lower income areas in Canada tend to get a significant amount of more waiting days for health related appointments than those in higher income areas. The racialization of poverty in Canada is prevalent, constantly marginalizing first nations peoples and pushing them into areas of increased poverty by giving unequal access to employment, less pay for the same jobs, amongst other discriminant acts. Such discrimination leads to higher amounts of death amongst those not in rich areas. This elitism is another grave problem on this so called "universal" health system that desperately needs change.