{"id":37788,"date":"2018-06-21T09:52:46","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T13:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=37788"},"modified":"2020-09-25T13:06:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T17:06:36","slug":"blanket-exercise-boosts-staff-awareness-about-colonization-effects-on-indigenous-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/blanket-exercise-boosts-staff-awareness-about-colonization-effects-on-indigenous-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Blanket Exercise boosts staff awareness about colonization effects on Indigenous patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Megan Ellis, Indigenous Program Coordinator, has been leading the KAIROS Blanket Exercise with groups of staff from The Ottawa Hospital. She wears her red sash to show her M\u00e9tis heritage.<\/em><\/p>\n

It moves some to tears. Others are shocked, yet hopeful. Anger, guilt and shame can also come with the heightened awareness hospital staff members have after taking part in the KAIROS Blanket Exercise.<\/p>\n

The interactive exercise \u2013 developed by KAIROS<\/a>, an ecumenical social justice group \u2013 retells 500 years of Canada\u2019s history through the perspective of First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis. Staff members stand on blankets that represent all the land controlled by Indigenous people when settlers first came to what is now Canada. By the end, they are standing on small islands of folded blankets, illustrating the dispossession of land and all that Indigenous people lost.<\/p>\n

During the exercise, staff are asked to step off the blankets, as they represent children adopted as part of the \u2018Sixties Scoop,\u2019 children who died at residential schools, people who died from smallpox, and so on.<\/p>\n

A group discussion followed the exercise. Many participants expressed dismay that they never learned this history in school and it\u2019s still not always taught to their children today. Many did not know, for example, that sled dogs were shot so the Inuit could not pursue their traditional hunting. Or that blankets were purposely infected with smallpox and handed out to Indigenous people. Or that nutrition experiments were conducted on children at residential schools.<\/p>\n

\"Staff<\/div>\n
\"Staff<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Staff members stand on blankets that represent all the land controlled by Indigenous people. They had lots of land at the start, when settlers first came to what is now Canada, but they have much smaller, unconnected islands of land now.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“As Canadians, it\u2019s part of our story, something we have to carry with us,\u201d said <\/a>Megan Ellis, Indigenous Program Coordinator, who led the exercise. “We all have to carry on and move forward in a good way.”<\/p>\n

“This exercise is not to make you feel guilty, but to more fully understand Indigenous people, and where they\u2019ve come from, the traumas they\u2019ve been through and how to provide culturally sensitive care,” explained Gwen Barton, Manager of Patient Experience in the Cancer Program.<\/p>\n

Ellis, Barton, Dr. Treena Greene, Regional Indigenous Cancer Lead, and Indigenous Patient Navigator Carolyn Roberts are offering the KAIROS Blanket Exercise to groups of staff, doctors and volunteers to raise awareness about the traumas that Indigenous patients have gone through. So far, about 90 staff members have taken part. They are encouraged to incorporate that knowledge into their patient care.<\/p>\n

“If you\u2019ve treated an Indigenous patient around age 50 or older, odds are they\u2019ve attended residential school,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cThere are reasons why people behave the way they do.”<\/p>\n

Lucie Zabchuk, Coordinator of Volunteer Resources at the Civic Campus, took part in the exercise in May.<\/p>\n

“I felt like crying,\u201d said Zabchuk, who represented children who died at residential schools. \u201cI think everyone should go through this. We can\u2019t forget our history, but it gives me hope that we can make it better.”<\/p>\n

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As part of the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, staff members were asked to step off the blankets, as they represented, for example, children who died at residential school.<\/p><\/div>\n

“Several of my staff members described the exercise as a life-changing and intense experience,\u201d said Julie Renaud, Manager in Radiation Therapy.
\nSome of the biggest questions people have after going through the exercise are \u201cWhat changes can we make here? What\u2019s next?”<\/p>\n

Cancer Program staff are making a difference to Indigenous patient care at The Ottawa Hospital. Inuit patients from Nunavut, for example, come to The Ottawa Hospital for cancer treatment, but have trouble getting back home for palliative care. Roberts has intervened in many cases to enable patients to die at home, surrounded by their extended families.<\/p>\n

Managers who would like to schedule the KAIROS Blanket Exercise for their group, or those who would like more information, should email Megan Ellis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It moves some to tears. Others are shocked, yet hopeful. Anger, guilt and shame can also come with the heightened awareness hospital staff members have after taking part in the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, which retells 500 years of Canada\u2019s history through the perspective of First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":37789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[480,393,424,166],"class_list":["post-37788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-compassion","tag-education","tag-indigenous-health","tag-staff-experience"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}