Resource List on Systemic Racism in Perinatal Health in Canada – Eva Bild

My motivation in compiling this list was to find Canadian resources for participants in my birth doula workshop.

My motivation was to find Canadian resources for participants in my birth doula workshop. As a White Canadian, I do not have lived experience of the effects of racism within our institutions. American or British resources do not help me confront these issues, because I can reassure myself that “it’s not so bad here.” So I set out to find specifically Canadian resources to help me come face to face with the racist past and present of our country. I also wanted to focus on health care, and particularly perinatal care, because these are the issues I am called to work on in my profession as a doula, childbirth educator, and doula trainer.

I have only included items that can be freely and easily accessed (no scholarly articles behind pay-walls), and I have chosen shorter items, because they are more likely to get read!

I welcome comments about anything from this list that you watch/read. This list is not final – I hope to continue to add to it and update it. I welcome contributions to the list, if you know of articles or videos you would like to share. Send them along!

Eva Bild, AdvCD(DONA) BDT(DONA) LCCE
Victoria, BC
evarbild@gmail.com

Institutional/Systemic Racism in Hospitals in Canada

In Plain Sight – Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in B.C. Health Care – https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/613/2020/11/In-Plain-Sight-Full-Report.pdf

https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/EMRIP/Health/UniversityManitoba.pdf

Episode from CBC radio – White Coat Black Art: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/i-am-a-white-settler-why-that-matters-in-health-care-1.4545454/it-s-the-hardest-conversation-we-can-have-confronting-racism-in-health-care-1.4545477

https://portal.cfpc.ca/ResourcesDocs/uploadedFiles/Resources/_PDFs/SystemicRacism_ENG.pdf

http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Colour-Coded-Health-Care.pdf

Indian Hospitals (This is the term that was used for these now historical institutions.)

https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/a-brief-look-at-indian-hospitals-in-canada-0

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/books/separate-beds

Perinatal Care – Indigenous Families

Decolonizing Indigenous birth work and reproductive health | CGSHE Spotlight Series – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fflYtCVFrnQ&t=1794s

https://diversityhealthcare.imedpub.com/canadian-indigenous-womens-perspectives-ofmaternal-health-and-health-care-services-asystematic-review.pdf

https://www.nccih.ca/docs/health/FS-AboriginalMaternalHealth-Smylie-EN.pdf

https://www.jogc.com/article/S1701-2163(16)34325-0/pdf

Indigenous Birth

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324574736_Indigenous_Birth_in_Canada_Reconciliation_and_Reproductive_Justice_in_the_Settler_State

Forced Sterilization – Canada

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-13-2018-1.4902679/indigenous-women-kept-from-seeing-their-newborn-babies-until-agreeing-to-sterilization-says-lawyer-1.4902693

Perinatal Care – Black Canadians

What It’s Like To Give Birth While Black

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/black-maternal-health-canada_ca_5ed90ae3c5b685164f2eab93

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399118309601?via%3Dihub

https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/black-women-canada-higher-risk-preterm-births-256639

Anti-Black Racism in Canada – History

“Anti-Black racism is a particularly pernicious, borderless, and unique form of racism that has its roots in the Transatlantic slave trade. Slavery evolved into what Saidiya Hartman terms the “afterlife of slavery,” the modern-day, virulent, enduring forms of structural racial injustice and the different forms of structural inequalities that African descended people here in Canada and in other parts of the world continue to experience today.”

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2020/06/09/if-black-lives-truly-matter-in-canada-an-apology-for-slavery-is-only-a-first-step/

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-erasure-of-canadas-history-of-anti-black-racism/id1462438248?i=1000477236535

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ep-01-policing-black-lives-by-robyn-maynard-ft-natasha/id1517728687?i=1000487997076

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/15781363-anti-black-racism-canada

Anti-Black Racism Reading List

https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/anti-black-racism-reading-list

CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) – Open Access

Time to dismantle systemic anti-Black racism in medicine in Canada

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/193/2/E55?fbclid=IwAR12nm56JtsRA6_MknvDDd5t_SVFc1n_OGRRONfR51_BvwahZZ9reHlfujE&utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=CMAJ_TrendMD_0

About William Osler – (in)famous Canadian doctor – and his place in our racist history

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/45/E1414?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=CMAJ_TrendMD_0

Is your hospital culturally safe?

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/187/1/E13.full?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=CMAJ_TrendMD_0

The Secret Life of Canada

A podcast about the country you know and the stories you don’t.

The Secret Life of Canada highlights the people, places and stories that probably didn’t make it into your high school textbook. Join hosts Leah and Falen as they explore the unauthorized history of a complicated country.

The podcasts include stories about the wide variety of marginalized people in Canada – from Indigenous people, to Black Canadians and People of Colour, to LGBTQ people.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/203-the-secret-life-of-canada