The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has made a formal apology to Canada’s First Nations peoples for the role physicians played in a history marked by discrimination, substandard care, medical experimentation, forced sterilisation, and the forced removal of children from their parents.1
CMA president Joss Reimer listed some of the past wrongs at a ceremony held in Victoria on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋiʔnəŋ speaking people of the Songhees and Xwsepsum nations.
“The Indian hospital system embedded systemic racism and discrimination in the Canadian health system by fostering racial segregation and conditions where indigenous patients received substandard and unsafe care,” said Reimer. “Patients were subjected to abuse, experimental treatments, and forced and coerced sterilisation.”
She continued, “Medical experimentation was conducted on indigenous children …
