New online tool allows Indigenous patients to anonymously report racism in health-care system

The B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC), whose website hosts the app, aims to use the information to figure out patterns of racist incidents in the health-care sector, and present solutions on how to address these issues with policymakers.

The project was inspired by the independent investigative report into racism in the B.C. health care released by former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond last November, the association said in a news release.

Safespace was created by Canadian Medical Association president-elect Dr. Alika Lafontaine, an Alberta-based anesthesiologist of Anishinaabe, Cree, Metis and Pacific Islander descent. 

Lafontaine says he decided to create the app based on his and fellow Indigenous doctors’ experience of racism in the health-care sector. 

“I’ve been racialized as a [health-care] provider. I’ve been racialized as a patient and as a family member of someone going to the health-care system,” he said.

“Coming from that perspective, we had just a really strong sense for why it’s important… to be part of the solution to solving the problem.” 

Lafontaine says he expects Safespace will soon be adopted by Indigenous organizations across the country.

The BCAAFC, which has centres in 25 municipalities across the province, is among the first to implement the app and has spent the first part of this year offering workshops on how to use it.

BCAAFC executive director Leslie Varley says Safespace allows Indigenous patients to voice their concerns without fear of backlash.

Varley, a member of the Nisga’a Nation, says she has seen how racist stereotypes about Indigenous people — that they’re addicted to alcohol or have a higher tolerance for pain, for example — have hurt people she knows who were seeking emergency treatment.

She said in one case, her cousin had to wait seven hours for treatment; in another, an Indigenous friend’s baby with a high fever developed brain damage after they were turned away twice at the same hospital, she said.

“The Safespace app… was to try to address these stereotypes that mainstream Canadians continue to have about us,” Varley said.

WATCH | Report finds evidence of widespread racism against Indigenous people in B.C. health-care system:

An independent investigation has found clear evidence of widespread racism and discrimination against Indigenous patients and staff in the B.C. health-care system. 2:03

Subscribe to Daybreak North on CBC Listen or your favourite podcast app, and connect with CBC Northern British Columbia on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.