Two Indigenous nurses pave the way to overcoming a colonial past to lead in health care – Times Colonist
May 20, 2024
Up until the 1930s, Indigenous women were ‘largely barred’ from attending nursing school in Canada.
Prior to colonization, Indigenous healers and midwives held significant roles in their communities, serving with their knowledge of harvesting, preparing and administering local medicinal plants, reads an article published by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA).
Even with Indigenous people’s rich history of traditional medicines and healing practices, Western health-care systems have a longstanding past of alienating First Nations people from the sector.
“The genesis of health care in Canada was a direct result of the relationship that the Jesuit missionaries had with our First Nations healers when they first came to the land,” said Lisa Bourque Bearskin of Beaver Lake Cree Nation, who is an associate professor for the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria (UVic). “When the settlers came over, they introduced disease. It was the First Nations healers and helpers that helped cure them and give them access to all of that traditional knowledge that’s on the land.”
