The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is examining how gender impacts health and wellness in Indigenous peoples.
The organization questions whether paying more attention to this will improve conditions.
“Gender plays a significant role in health and wellness, but is often overlooked or ignored, especially in Indigenous communities in Canada. What if we paid more attention to gender when discussing Indigenous health? Could we improve overall wellness among Indigenous peoples?”
Scientific researcher, Dr. Carrie Bourassa, examined the inequalities for Indigenous people accessing healthcare. She says the findings indicate that women are often stigmatized in getting care.
“Not only because they are Indigenous, but that HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C. They’ve experienced extreme poverty. Many of them have attended residential school or their families have attended residential school,” said Bourassa.
Bourassa says gender-based inequalities in healthcare is a wide-spread problem for Indigenous people based on a patriarchal system. She claims there is a lot of mistrust for women in accessing care, causing fear and apprehension in getting treatment or seeking a physician.
“They are afraid to go to a doctor, they don’t have a regular physician. When they do finally go to the hospital for care, they experience such stigma and racism that they don’t want to go and that they have an advocate to go with them,” explained Bourassa. “Talk about access to care. Access isn’t just physical access, access is not feeling safe enough to go and get care, the care they vitally need.”
Bourassa says 166 women were interviewed as part of the study. Bourassa’s findings will be further examined at a conference in Montreal next June.
(PHOTO: CIHR logo. Photo courtesy of CIHR.gc.ca)