Indian hospital
Indigenous populations had been affected by various diseases brought by European settlers and missionaries, including tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, mumps, diphtheria, typhoid, and influenza, from the 19th century onwards.
[10] The national government began a large-scale operation, run under the auspices of the Advisory Committee for the Control and Prevention of Tuberculosis among Indians, to isolate and reduce the occurrence of the disease in northern populations.
The federal government made the choice not to build hospitals in the north but to evacuate infected individuals to the south of Canada and invest in facilities there.
[4] Part of the national operation were ships dedicated to carrying TB-infected passengers from Northern Canada to the sanatorium.
[15] The ships were equipped with x-ray technology to diagnose infections, and patients were marked on the hand with identifying numbers and the results of their tests.
Canadian settler medical professionals attribute the spread of the disease, besides the Indigenous populations' lack of immunity, to overcrowded living conditions in Inuit communities - after forcible relocation by the Canadian government - and weakened constitutions through limited food supplies.
[18]Medical professionals continue to congratulate themselves on successfully stemming the tide of the disease through such interventions of forcible removal of infected individuals from their homes.
[11]Shawn Selway states that while leaving their homes for treatment was not mandatory, most Inuit felt pressured in a way that could not be considered consensual.
[25] In 1928, doctors who later ran the Fort Qu'Appelle Indian Hospital were given federal funding to develop drugs to fight the TB epidemic.
Men and women would be forced to leave their families behind [...] at times left without a father to hunt or a mother to make clothes or care for the children.
As exemplified in the quote above, so great was the desperation, that the minister would often marry couples when one of them had to leave for the hospital, in order to sanctify the union while there was still time to do so.
[15] Some former patients assert that they were sent to sanatoria for treatment without actually testing positive for tuberculosis:"[My mom] was told she had TB, but many years later, when she went to the doctor, they said to her, 'No — you would have had scars on your lungs,'" Hunt said.
[27]Some researchers agree with this assessment, indicating that some Indigenous community members were forcibly removed from their land by means of a TB diagnosis:Declaring individuals contagious was a good means of control, keeping them out of trouble or out of circulation while the task of clearing the land was underway.
[7][17]Some rates of removal of Indigenous people from their communities have been quoted as 5,240 Inuit from 1953 and 1961, compared to a total population in the Eastern Arctic of about 11,500.
[33] Low salaries, poor working conditions, and the isolated locations of many hospitals made it difficult to maintain adequate numbers of qualified staff.
People forcibly transported and confined in sanatoria were often given little information about their treatment and rights:[27]"Perhaps you are wondering why you are brought down from your home leaving your friends and perhaps family behind.
[27][23]Children who did such things as sit up in bed or put a foot on the floor were punished by being strapped, spanked, or being forced to wear a straitjacket for a period of time.
[24] At least one Indian hospital, the Fort William Sanatorium, served a dual use as a residential school, where tuberculosis-diagnosed children received education.
"[40] Survivors of Fort William petitioned to have their cases included in the Residential Schools Settlement, but were denied as the sanatorium was not accepting patients primarily for educational purposes.
[41] From 1949 to 1953, 374 experimental surgeries were performed on TB patients, without the use of general anesthetic at the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital.
[42] In 1956, Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton used its patients to test versions of para-aminosalicylic acid (PAS); they also performed trials of a thyroid-stimulating hormone for a study of hypothyroidism in Indigenous people.
[4] Besides treatment with drugs, surgical procedures were performed on patients, including the intentional collapsing of lungs and removal of ribs, causing deformities.
Many patients who returned home after their confinement found it difficult to readjust to their culture, having forgotten skills and languages.
[11] Two separate cases of babies being switched at birth (sent home with the wrong parents) at Norway House have been reported; these errors were only discovered many years later.
[46] A then-student of a nearby residential school remembers digging graves for tuberculosis victims from the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton.
[43] Many northern communities still have high rates of infection for TB, despite improvements in vaccination in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
[21] In Nunavut the rates are said to be 296 times higher for Inuit compared to non-Aboriginal people and that of the 25 communities in the territory at least 17 have TB cases, with Qikiqtarjuaq having 10% of the population infected.
That means it will include measures, which have already started, aimed at helping Inuit find the graves of family members who were transported to southern Canada for TB treatment between the 1940s and the 1960s.
[55]In January 2018, a $1.1 billion class-action lawsuit was filed against the Canadian government to provide compensation for victims of Indian hospitals and their descendants.
[32] This lawsuit also points to the inadequate care, physical and sexual abuse, and the long term negative health and psychological impacts associated with the hospitals.
