Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Culturally safe healthcare

Recommendation 192: Opportunities for urban Indigenous women to learn traditional and land-based healing practices and develop peer-based holistic health support programs and activities such as regular opportunities to go canoeing, pick medicines, and harvest foods.

Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Culturally safe healthcare

Recommendation 193: More Indigenous patient navigators and Indigenous medicine people in hospitals to bridge between Indigenous patients and the Western medical system.

Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Culturally safe healthcare

Recommendation 194: More Indigenous healing spaces and sacred spaces in hospitals and hospices.

Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Culturally safe healthcare

Recommendation 195: Social workers in hospitals need to ensure wrap-around support, including financial, housing, and social support, before discharging Indigenous women from hospitals.

Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Culturally safe healthcare

Recommendation 196: Hospitals including security guards need to be welcoming and supportive—not judgmental and criminalizing—in their interactions with Indigenous patients.

Recommendations for Indigenous women’s wellness in the DTES

Expanded health services

Recommendation 204: Declare the opioid crisis a national public health emergency that disproportionately impacts Indigenous women, and expand funding for immediate health-based solutions for the opioid crisis that focus on the specific needs of Indigenous women. This includes:

1. Full spectrum of recovery supports including immediate access to Indigenous women’s detox-on-demand and treatment centres.
2. Indigenous-run treatment centres that use culture as treatment with Indigenous healing methods and land-based practices.
3. More indoor overdose prevention sites and consumption sites, including culturally safe sites for Indigenous women only.
4. Decriminalization and access to safer drug supply.
5. Opioid-assisted therapy programs and full spectrum of substitution treatment options.
6. Longer-term funding for range of culturally safe treatment programs.
7. Provincial regulation and oversight over all recovery programs and facilities.