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Aboriginal Gathering Place + Health Design Lab Push for Systems-Level Change with Decolonizing Healthcare Project

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By Perrin Grauer

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The new initiative aims to transform Indigenous people鈥檚 experiences in the BC healthcare system.

A new 麻豆视频 initiative aimed at decolonizing healthcare in the province鈥檚 north has received the go-ahead following a generous grant from the Vancouver Foundation.

Led by Emily Carr鈥檚 Aboriginal Gathering Place and Health Design Lab, the Decolonizing the Healthcare System through Cultural Connections project will work to improve healthcare practices and systems that have historically marginalized and harmed Indigenous individuals and communities.

These ongoing harms, the grant proposal explains, are due to an inadequate understanding amongst many healthcare practitioners and policymakers of Indigenous worldviews, lived experiences and the impacts of colonial policy on the health of Indigenous people.

In BC, as in Canada more broadly, Indigenous people of all ages experience significantly poorer health outcomes than non-Indigenous people. This discrepancy is linked both to Canada鈥檚 colonial past and to barriers including systemic racism which continue to permeate the country鈥檚 healthcare system.

Policies that severed ties between many Indigenous people and their cultures, languages, land and communities have generated ongoing, complex and damaging effects on the mental, emotional, spiritual, cultural and physical health of those peoples.

鈥淭he healthcare system鈥檚 failure to meet the needs of Indigenous people is a critical social issue,鈥 reads the Decolonizing Healthcare proposal.

鈥淚ndigenous people report experiencing pervasiv