Aboriginal Hospitals: the Untold Story of Discriminatory Health Care

Canada, a country known for its equality and diversity, has a long and dark history of mistreating and abusing its Aboriginal population. Some of this history is taught in schools, such as that of residential schools and the cultural genocide attempted by the Canadian government. Some of this history, however, remains silenced. Here is the story of Indian hospitals. 

In the early twentieth century, tuberculosis (TB) was on the rise, and an increasing issue in Canada. TB was particularly prevalent in the Aboriginal population, with residential schools being a good breeding ground for this infectious disease. This lead to the creation of several Indian-only hospitals: hospitals where exclusively Aboriginals were treated. Regular community hospitals were usually limited to white, paying patients, so during this growing epidemic, these Indian-only hospitals became the only place Aboriginals could turn to for medical care. 

These hospitals, however, did not offer the same quality of treatment as regular community hospitals, because Aboriginals were seen as second-class citizens. For example, normal hospitals did not treat TB patients in the same building or wards as other patients – they didn’t want others to get infected. But in Indian hospitals, everyone was treated in the same place – TB patients, people having surgeries, and even children in the pediatric ward. This was known to be a bad public health practice, but health officials didn’t care. Aboriginal TB victims were seen only as a threat to white people, not to other Aboriginals. As long as they were locked away far from the rest of white Canada, “we” would be safe, even if it meant that more and more Aboriginals would get infected. 

At these hospitals, Aboriginals were also subject to abuse and inhumane treatment. Many experimental surgical procedures for TB left individuals permanently disfigured. Furthermore, in 2013, a lawsuit arose after research claimed that the government had tested TB vaccines on Aboriginal patients in the 1930s, and had allowed Aboriginal children to be used in nutritional experiments in the 1940s. 

The day-to-day life of these patients was also filled with abuse. Children were tied down to their beds so they couldn’t escape. They were isolated from their families and kept in these faraway hospitals, because health care providers believed that Aboriginals were inherently irresponsible and so couldn’t take care of themselves if they went back home. Some patients were never allowed to set foot outside – they went months, even years, without seeing the sun. 

There is irony in the fact that one of Canada’s pride and joys is its universal health care. We have come to believe that this most basic of rights – medical care – has always been a fundamental right for all Canadians. Yet there was a time – not long ago – when health care itself was racially segregated, when Aboriginals were seen as dangerous threats that should be locked up, rather than patients who should be cured, when abuse and mistreatment was government-funded. Indian hospitals existed until 1996. Victims of these hospitals are still alive today, and they carry the lasting burden of these injustices. Let’s make sure their stories are not silenced.