Race, Medicine, and the State: ‘Indian Hospitals’ in Canada

Dr. Maureen Lux

Two enduring narratives mark the history of health care in Canada after 1945. Better known is Medicare: often told as a progressive story of the path from a hardscrabble provincial plan to the definition of national health that improved health care for Canadians. The other, by contrast, chronicles the continued health disparities in many Indigenous communities. Dr. Maureen Lux, Professor and Chair, Department of History, will discuss how these contradictory and competing narratives emerged, how Medicare came to define health policy for First Nations people, and how it became natural for Canadians to see these intertwined narratives as separate and distinct by examining Indian Health Services and its so-called “Indian Hospitals.”

• Free