She recalls a mother of a non-Indigenous patient pointing out that many people in the ER that day were suffering from heat stroke. It was only when she was given a blood test and it was determined she had no alcohol or drugs in her blood that she was given a bed and hooked up to an IV to rehydrate her, she said. and I was so apologetic, because they were being so aggressive,' she said.
'I just kept saying it's just food poisoning.
'I was feeling, like, really, really light-headed,' said Houssin, a 23-year-old university student in Victoria.īut once she was checked in, she said a nurse became aggressive with her, demanding to know what drugs she was on and if she was drunk. Yvonne Houssin, who is Métis, remembers taking herself to a Victoria-area hospital during one of the hottest days of the summer in 2018, because she was feeling faint and suspected she had food poisoning. (Supplied by Tania Dick)Īlthough Dick now wishes she had taken legal action over her aunt's death, it did propel her to become an advocate for better treatment of Indigenous people in the health-care system. Health-care professionals in the hospital assumed she was intoxicated, but a toxicology report showed no alcohol or drugs in her blood. Debbie Coon, centre, was 48 when she died in a hospital from a head injury she suffered in a fall at her home.
