Launched by healthcare providers in January 2018, the #aHand2Hold
campaign confronted the Quebec government's practice of separating
children from their families during medical evacuation airlifts, which
disproportionately affected remote and northern Indigenous communities.
Pediatric emergency physician Samir Shaheen-Hussain's captivating
narrative of this successful campaign, which garnered unprecedented
public attention and media coverage, seeks to answer lingering questions
about why such a cruel practice remained in place for so long. In doing
so it serves as an indispensable case study of contemporary medical
colonialism in Quebec. Fighting for a Hand to Hold exposes the medical
establishment's role in the displacement, colonization, and genocide of
Indigenous peoples in Canada. Through meticulously gathered government
documentation, historical scholarship, media reports, public inquiries,
and personal testimonies, Shaheen-Hussain connects the draconian medevac
practice with often-disregarded crimes and medical violence inflicted
specifically on Indigenous children. This devastating history and
ongoing medical colonialism prevent Indigenous communities from
attaining internationally recognized measures of health and social
well-being because of the pervasive, systemic anti-Indigenous racism
that persists in the Canadian public health care system - and in settler
society at large. Shaheen-Hussain's unique perspective combines his
experience as a frontline pediatrician with his long-standing
involvement in anti-authoritarian social justice movements. Sparked by
the indifference and callousness of those in power, this book draws on
the innovative work of Indigenous scholars and activists to conclude
that a broader decolonization struggle calling for reparations, land
reclamation, and self-determination for Indigenous peoples is critical
to achieve reconciliation in Canada.
