We need a holistic approach to health care

Looking back, I now realize that I learned many fundamental lessons of good health care at a very young age. The traditional life skills my people demonstrated while living off the land taught that responsibility and resilience through social capital (we-chi-e-twin) were instrumental to the concept of preventing sickness, starvation, and other ailments. I mimicked these important life skills in my own play. Through this, I saw the need to provide food and keep warm, as well as to work hard and nurture family and community. These issues were not separate, but rather interwoven in such a way that allowed generations of Indigenous peoples to not simply survive, but thrive off the land. Through this, I got my first glimpse of holistic health care. In 1956, at the age of four, I visited the nursing station on my reserve because of a sty on my eyelid. As I started to tell this to the nurse, in a very loud voice, she said: “Don’t tell me what’s wrong with you. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you.” I was silenced. I was afraid. This was my first, but unfortunately not last, experience with lateral violence and shame from a health professional. It marked the start of my loss of power and spirit. I was taught that others had to take care of me because I was unable to take care of myself. It was with this entrenched belief that I was incapable of self-care that I slowly lost the concept of prevention. This encounter became the catalyst of my personal loss of voice and loss of responsibility, to be steadily replaced by increased anxiety. Over the next many years, I blindly accepted that the institutions in which I found myself knew what was best and should not be questioned. During this time I gradually abandoned my narrative of self-purpose and self-worth, and accepted the new story given to me in which I was expected to be silent and subservient. This included my 11 years as a student of residential school, which I left as a vulnerable young woman without any tangible life skills or critical thinking skills. In its own way, this also included my time as a student of health professions, whose rigid view of health care put a premium on the voice of the health-care provider while often working to stifle the voice of the patient. This was my first experience of the economy of illness, whether it be mental, physical, psychological, or social. I regret that it took many years for me to decolonize from the Western way of providing health care. The current system, by and large, dictates that the health-care professional should simply treat the individual illness, or body part in question, and move on to the next patient. However, it is this narrow approach that has continued to result in a greater deficiency in health status, especially for those who are already marginalized in society. Health care cannot fully succeed in this silo-driven approach. After years as a health-care provider myself, I relearned that I was responsible for my patients when they entered the doorway of my clinic and I needed to honour the commitment. The patient needs to be heard, not simply seen. It is by learning their situation and circumstance that we can better achieve a more targeted course of action for more effective, and holistic, treatment. During my time as a dentist, I have had patients come back every two years to have fillings replaced. These individuals, often Indigenous, frequently do not have the basic securities of food, housing, and employment. Without access to these basic necessities for survival, how can we expect them to spend resources on more advanced health care? We, as a country, need to re-evaluate our health policies. We need to re-evaluate our methods of health education. And we need to ensure that, through these structural improvements, the patient is heard and upheld in a way that will result in truly preventative health care. Manitoba Senator Mary Jane McCallum is a member of the Independent Senators Group, a First Nations woman of Cree heritage, holds a doctor of dental medicine, and has provided dental care to First Nations communities across Manitoba. The Hill Times