Utoo Radio with Other News Sources - September 22, 2024 - A Métis physician in the Northwest Territories, believes that change must follow the CMA's recent apology to Indigenous people, which acknowledged its role in decades of harm inflicted on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people within the Canadian healthcare system.
Dr. Thomsen D'Hont believes that implementing community-based solutions and using technology in remote health care delivery could help address Canada's ongoing struggle to deliver quality health care to Indigenous peoples across the country.
"It's important … that they [the CMA] are involved with trying to right some of those past harms. It [the apology] is a step along that process. But the process is not complete," Dr. Thomsen D'Hont told other news sources.
The CMA reviewed 150 years of archives, chronicling systemic and overt racism, disparities in treatments, segregated "Indian Hospitals," child apprehensions, forced sterilizations, and medical experimentation, which led to devastating harm to Indigenous peoples.The CMA has developed a "ReconciliACTION plan" to advance health and well-being for Indigenous peoples, support the medical profession's journey toward truth and reconciliation, and promote internal reconciliation as an organization.
Dr. Alika Lafontaine, the association's first and only Indigenous president, believes promoting and maintaining a two-sided relationship between non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities is integral to the CMA's future.