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I went into labour Easter weekend and both my baby and me nearly died. I was TERRIFIED my entire pregnancy of becoming apart of the statistics of the horrific disparities in canadian healthcare for racialized/indigenous ppl here...
Even with my history at @UnityHealthTO St. Michael’s hospital & all of the incredible doctors/specialists I’ve been connected to the last 19 years, it took only TWO racist women during my labour/delivery/recovery to DESTROY whatever confidence I had in St. Mike’s/healthcare
Everything that happened to me while @UnityHealthTO St. Mike’s past week is so crazy, that every single person I tell my story to, is absolutely horrified & increasingly mortified w/every detail. Like my story literally checked EVERY box for terrible outcomes/racism in healthcare
I was sent home when I shouldn’t have been, repeatedly ignored/dismissed, denied proper pain management, all during induction gone wrong that caused baby to go into severe medical distress requiring emergency c section wherein I started bleeding out. Both of us nearly died...
Then during recovery period white social worker wanted to call CAS to take baby away I hadn’t even had in my arms for 24 hrs yet AFTER such a HORRIFIC L&D childbirth experience. I was also denied adequate pain management, denied pain meds for 2 days after major abdominal surgery
All of this while I remained docile, quiet, half conscious, still recovering from entire trauma of birth, and made sure to present as least “threatening” or “aggressive” as possible cuz y’all know ww will use ANY excuse to demonize BIPOC to justify their racism/bad/abusive care
