First Nations healing in the hospital : On the quest to implement indigenous healing in a clinical setting

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the interaction of so-called indigenous and Euro-American healing traditions in one of the most formal institutional settings: the hospital. The setting for this study is the Canadian Prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the main indigenous population are Plains First Nations. In the study I wish to discover if indigenous healing practices are able to adapt to a setting that is so central to the definition of settler states. I do so within a broader perspective that sets healing within a study of the decolonization process. The main argument is that part of the road to healing lies through the official institutions of the Canadian medical system and that it involves decolonization process for both the indigenous and the dominant society. The thesis asks why are hospitals settings being chosen today as the places to establish indigenous healing services and practices? To answer this question the thesis employs qualitative interview data and a reading of the literature. One of the key answers is that the hospital context permits the community of biomedical practitioners and the indigenous healers to interact. On the one hand, this interaction is seen as an important step for the revalorization and formal recognition of indigenous knowledge, and as determinant for the preservation and survival of it. On the other hand the field research shows that aboriginal patients feel extremely vulnerable when hospitalized and that the integration of indigenous healing within hospitals would improve the quality health care. Despite these strong answers, the project remains explorative. The conclusions show that there is no simple answer for how these two traditions can come together. One of the main reasons is that this process of implementation is at the very beginning. It shows as well that not all healers think that this is a good idea, and are worried about the expropriation and integrity of the knowledge. Some questions remain inconclusive and further research will be necessary in order to give further answers