Pregnant Indigenous women in Canada have suffered from COVID-19 measures more than others, say birth workers across the country. The disproportionate harm has amplified long-standing discrimination and mistreatment, they add.
The treatment of Indigenous people in Canadian healthcare has recently come under scrutiny after Joyce Echaquan, a mother of seven, recorded degrading treatment by staff on video at a Quebec hospital shortly before her death in late September.
The federal government told openDemocracy it “recognises that Indigenous women face unique, complex challenges in many areas of their lives” – but doulas, midwives and other health workers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan said pandemic policies do not seem to have been designed or implemented with these challenges in mind.
