Doctor’s study of health care for Indigenous children wins two 2021 Quebec Writers’ Federation literary awards

Press Release

A deeply researched and critical study of Canada’s health care services for Indigenous children by Samir Shaheen-Hussain won two of the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF) annual 2021 literary awards.

Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism against Indigenous Children in Canada, was awarded both the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction and the Concordia University First Book Prize.

Shaheen-Hussain’s Fighting for a Hand to Hold is “a necessary book,” wrote one juror, “not just for medical workers who provide care for Indigenous children, but for civil servants who proportion this care, and especially necessary for Quebec politicians who continue to deny systemic racism against Indigenous people and other racialized minorities.”

The author, a pediatrician and assistant professor of medicine at McGill, was a key organizer of a campaign that prompted the Quebec government to stop airlifting children from northern communities for treatment down south without a parent or caregiver present.

These awards and nine others were announced Wednesday, November 24, at a gala attended by Quebec’s English-language literary community, both online and in person, held at the Lion d’Or in Montreal.

You can watch a repeat of the Gala video here: WATCH THE GALA!

IHT5