Clarissa Larson attends a prenatal visit at Call Auntie with midwife and program lead Cheryllee Bourgeois. The clinic provides a range of services, from getting a lump checked to accessing diabetes medication.Chloe Ellingson/The Globe and Mail
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many Canadians were desperate for information about the virus. Fear was running high. Answers were in short supply.
There was also heightened concern, shared by Canada’s then-chief public health officer, that Indigenous people were at greater risk for worse illness, including death, because of factors including health inequities and higher rates of underlying conditions, as well as challenges accessing medical care.
In the face of that uncertainty, Cheryllee Bourgeois, a Métis midwife, along with other Indigenous midwives and community health workers, jumped into action. They launched a phone line that April, and staffed it for four hours every day to advise and support Indigenous patients.
‘In healthcare there’s a lot of discrimination. It’s great to be someone I wish I had had when I was younger,’ community health worker Sarah Desjarlais says.Chloe Ellingson/The Globe and Mail
Calling themselves “aunties” in keeping with Indigenous values of kinship and care, the health workers also fielded questions about issues such as access to housing.
“The idea was ‘Who do you call when you’re worried, trying to figure something out?’ You call your auntie to talk it through,” Ms. Bourgeois said.
A few months later, the Call Auntie phone line, which cost the group $11 a day, began offering in-person care, including for sexual and reproductive health services. The clinic continues to offer this kind of support once a week at the Toronto Birth Centre, and today provides a range of services, from getting a lump checked to accessing diabetes medication.
The centre is abuzz with activity every Wednesday. Staff watch over children while they play, or pull them around in a little wagon, so parents can attend appointments. There’s a drop-in talking circle called ‘All About Our Relationships.’
A central goal is to give patients a way to access care while reducing barriers to the medical system, said Ms. Bourgeois. People can still reach out by phone to the clinic. As a federally registered non-profit, it accepts donations to help community members with food and essential items.
Outreach nurse Jessica Arteaga says goodbye to client Warren Boucher outside the Native Arts Society. Boucher, an Ojibwe elder and residential school survivor, had been living in a tent when it was dismantled by the City of Toronto the day prior to meeting up with Arteaga at the gallery.
She said the team wants to address gaps and create ways for patients to enter the health care system who might not fit with a more general approach. “People deserve health care,” Ms. Bourgeois said.
Indigenous health advocates echo that patients should be able to access safe and culturally appropriate health care amid persistent concerns about anti-Indigenous racism in health.
Many Indigenous patients say they are worried about how they will be treated if they go to a hospital or seek other medical services.
Outreach nurse Jessica Arteaga prepares to administer an anti-psychotic on the steps of a client’s apartment building. ‘I can be rigid and tell my client she has to come to the clinic,’ Arteaga said, ‘but she might not come.’Chloe Ellingson/The Globe and Mail
The 2020 death of 37-year-old Joyce Echaquan, a mother of seven who sought help at a hospital about an hour north of Montreal and endured racist taunts by health care professionals, highlights why patients often fear for their safety.
Ms. Echaquan’s treatment, which she captured on video, spurred a coroner’s inquest. It found that a combination of “undeniable” systemic racism and health system failings contributed to her death.
By contrast, the Call Auntie clinic is Indigenous-led. Among those leaders is Suzanne Shoush, a First Nations and Black doctor who works downtown and as the Indigenous health faculty lead at the University of Toronto.
This spring, the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada said Call Auntie has grown into “a full wrap-around care model grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and healing.” It also praised Dr. Shoush for her “heart, vision and deep community commitment.”
Ms. Bourgeois said the clinic works with organizations in the community, such as Inner City Health Associates, which offers services to people who live in shelters, encampments or other forms of precarious housing in Toronto.
Recently, Ms. Bourgeois said the team worked with a client who lives in a tent by helping him access and recover from surgery.
Call Auntie is, at its core, all about relationships and offering a place for people to be together. There’s always food to eat, too, such as homemade soup and comforting cups of tea.
“We really think of the people we interact with as our relatives and we draw on the teachings that we have about how to take care of each other,” Ms. Bourgeois said.
Outreach nurse Gemma Ellsworth-Spotton meets with a client, Nina, at a park. Call Auntie is, at its core, all about relationships and offering a place for people to be together.
