Caron, Canada's first female Indigenous general surgeon, is a member of a research team investigating Indigenous disparities in Canada's health-care system.
A new study has found that Indigenous people are more likely to have complications or death after surgery.
Ottawa, Ont.-If you're an Indigenous person in Canada, you may be 30 percent more likely to die after surgery than a non-Indigenous person.
That's one of the findings of a new study that has been published: "Postoperative outcomes for Indigenous Peoples in Canada: a systemic review"
Recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, this is the first study to analyze all available surgical outcome data for the Indigenous populations. The study looked at 28 studies that compared surgery outcomes for various procedures for about 1.9 million patients and found that Indigenous people in Canada have higher rates of death and complications after surgery, and lower rates of surgery than other populations.
For instance Indigenous people were less lkely to undergo surgeries that might save their lives, such as cardiac surgery, kidney transplants, and caesareans. They were also less likely to agree to surgeries that might improve their lives, such as joint replacements. Four studies indicated that Indigenous people had a 30 percent increased risk of death after surgery.
The study also found that access to safe and timely surgery is essential, as it is responsible for 65 per cent of cancer cure and control, prevents death from trauma, and in the case of caesarean births, reduces newborn deaths by up to 70 per cent.
"Unfortunately, it's not a surprise," the study's co-author, Dr. Nadine Caron, told CBC News. For decades, anecdotal evidence implied that this was a fact. But now, Caron says, "It's really started a baseline level of data to say some of the suspicions that we had are starting to be validated."
Caron is Canada's first female Indigenous general surgeon, co-director of the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health at UBC and the founding First Nations Health Authority Chair (FNHA) in Cancer and Wellness at UBC. She summarized, "Understanding surgical outcomes and access to surgical services is a vital step towards addressing colonialism and structural racism within healthcare, so we can identify the gaps and determine what needs to be improved,"
"This study tells Canadians two things," Dr. Jason McVicar, a Métis anesthesiologist and lead author of the survey told CBC News. "We need better data, and the data we have tell us that we need to do better," he said "Better quality research by Indigenous investigators and real-time outcome monitoring for Indigenous patients are essential to eliminating structural racism in the health care system. What we need to do is take the step forward and start to pose specific questions and do some robust research, led by Indigenous researchers."
Systemic discrimination is suspected as one reason for the high mortality rate.
"These health inequities are direct impacts of the social determinants of health, which are in turn effects of colonialism and government policies, including the Indian residential school system. People living in remote regions have less access to publicly funded health care . . . with worse outcomes," reads the report.
