Welcome to the “Health Liaison” Space
Here you will find information to support the building and maintaining of productive partnerships based on trust, accountability and mutual respect.
- If you are a Health Services Provider, information here can guide meaningful engagement and capacity building that puts “Indigenous Health in Indigenous Hands”.
- If you are a community member, information here will help you better understand what options you have to advocate for yourself and provide valuable feedback to the health care system.
This document is meant to support non-Indigenous led organizations build capacity to engage with Indigenous communities, enhance cultural safety and understand what they can do to support calls to action and “Indigenous Health in Indigenous Hands”. The sections reflect the Indigenous Health Framework laid out by Ontario Health.
Have you visited a neighbouring hospital and wish to share about your experience? Hospitals and care providers want to hear feedback – complaints and/or compliments!
Sharing patient experience with a hospital – what are my options?
Hospital Patient Experience Contacts
If you have shared your concerns with Patient Experience/Patient Relations and are not happy with the outcome, please check out: Reporting concerns to Ontario Patient Ombudsman
Frequently Asked Questions about reporting concerns about poor/unfair treatment to a hospital.
Did you know that medical health professionals are regulated? Every health care professional is licensed to practice by their ‘regulatory body’. They have to maintain standards of care and can be disciplined by these regulatory bodies, that is they can risk losing their license by offering poor quality care.
What happens when I report to the ‘regulatory body’? (College of Nurses for example)
Jodi Rock is Six Nations of the Grand River, Mohawk Nation, and a registered band member of Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Over the past 15 years, she has worked extensively within Indigenous communities, providing support through patient navigation and residential/transitional programs. In the last decade, Jodi has expanded her experience to system-level work, collaborating with Indigenous and non-Indigenous health and social leaders to enhance safety and fairness for Indigenous people. Her work emphasizes self-awareness, intentional learning, and applying these insights to meaningful action.
Using Our Voice – Presentation Series
Created by Jodi Rock
This presentation series examines the impacts of anti-Indigenous racism across health-care pathways. It explores how colonial history, race-based policies, and institutional practices shape Indigenous peoples’ experiences of care, contributing to outcomes such as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment, and harm. Through real-world examples, the series emphasizes the importance of Indigenous voices in advancing cultural awareness, cultural safety, and meaningful system change.
This opening module introduces how racism towards Indigenous people can impact along care pathways, resulting in lack of assessment, misdiagnosis, lack of treatment and death. The roots of racism towards Indigenous people are explored, looking at how colonial context informs how Indigenous people are viewed and treated, since colonization to present day. Looking at how racism has been embedded into systems (through race based legislation, policies of genocide for example) and institutions (Indian Residential Schools, Indian Hospitals) highlights why Indigenous people experience health care differently and why they may be fearful to engage with institutions and care providers. The experiences of Brian Sinclair, Joyce Echaquan and Heather Winterstein are brought forward as examples of the extent of harm Indigenous people, families and communities experience.
The module closes with consideration of why Indigenous people need to be speaking up about their patient experience. How funding agreements and present day policies are directing systems like Ontario Health Teams and institutions like hospitals to take action to “Advance Indigenous health strategies and outcomes”. Breaking this down, this important work involves increasing ‘cultural awareness’ (deepening understanding of who we are as Indigenous people) and ‘cultural safety’ (addressing the racism within the system and practices, including service delivery).
Click the image below, or this link to view Module 1.
Anti-Indigenous racism can have serious impacts along the care pathway. Racism towards Indigenous people can contribute to serious outcomes, like lack of assessment, misdiagnosis, lack of treatment and death. This module gives examples of what systemic, epistemic, interpersonal and internalized racism can look like within health care systems, structures and relationships between Indigenous patients and care providers.
Looking at how internalized racism can shape views Indigenous people may have of themselves, others and potential future outcomes can give insight into why Indigenous patients may be seeking treatment/diagnosis at later stages of disease progression and why they are often labelled as non-compliant or frequent flyers within health care spaces like emergency departments.
Click the image below, or this link, to view Module 2.
This module introduces The Pathway to Harm (Dr. Cheryl Ward/icscollaborative.com), how colonial ideologies/worldviews about Indigenous people evolve into stereotypes (beliefs), prejudice (attitudes) and harmful discrimination (behaviours), specifically within the health care system (in Canada).
What are the outcomes from bias, stereotypes, prejudice along care pathways? Indigenous people face lack of assessment, misdiagnosis, lack of treatment, and death because of racism.
Click the image below, or this link, to view Module 3.
The Pathway to Harm describes what precedes harmful discrimination (bias or worldview, stereotypes and prejudice). In this module we look specifically at common stereotypes of Indigenous people that surface within the health care system. We connect those stereotypes to what can be observed as indicators of systemic, epistemic, interpersonal and internalized racism towards Indigenous people.
Click the image below, or this link, to view Module 4.
Looking at the pathway to harm components can suggest where to take action to interrupt harm. We review the definition of racism, and the different types of racism that Indigenous people experience (systemic racism, epistemic racism, interpersonal racism and internalized). We also revisit the potential outcomes racism towards Indigenous people may lead to within health care spaces, relationships and service delivery (lack of assessment, misdiagnosis, mistreatment and death).
How to frame intervention? Work backwards along that pathway to harm. Describe fully and objectively the behaiviours and attitudes that are presenting. With curiosity explore the underpinning beliefs and assumptions, name the stereotypes that may be having influence. Counter those stereotypes by providing information that suggests/supports taking a different view of Indigenous people/the experience. Is this best done privately? In public potential benefits of each. We also look at those aspects of the system that are put in place so patients can provide feedback.
Click the image below, or this link, to view Module 5.
