Makayla Sault is an 11-year-old First Nations girl who is bright, vivacious and wonderfully reflective. She also happens to have a big health problem – leukemia – and an even bigger problem with the treatment she got for it. Last spring. she wrote a letter to her doctors at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, asking for an end to the chemotherapy treatments which gave her debilitating side effects. Eventually, her parents granted her wish — and stopped the chemo, opting instead for traditional indigenous medicine and treatment at a holistic clinic in Florida.
First Nations girl favours traditional medicine over chemo4:27
“I know that what I have can kill me, but I don’t want to die in the hospital on chemo, weak and sick.” – Makayla Sault, 11.
But that wasn’t the end end of the story. A few months later, another girl from a neighbouring reserve was diagnosed with the same kind of cancer.Like Makayla, she stopped chemo and chose indigenous and holistic treatments. But this time, in what’s being called a precedent-setting case, the hospital has gone to court It is asking a judge to force CAS to intervene and bring the girl, who can’t be named because of a publication ban, back into treatment. In medicine, when a family rejects potentially life-saving treatment for a child, child welfare authorities are often called to persuade them to change their mind. In both cases, the local children’s aid society decided not to intervene.
‘This was not a frivolous decision I made.” – mother of an 11-year old Six Nations girl who has rejected chemotherapy.
Both cases have made headlines and Connie Walker, a reporter with CBC’s Aboriginal Unit lays out the facts for us.
Then, we visit Six Nations Health Services, an Ontario clinic that provides both western and traditional medicine/ The clinic’s director reveals how treaty rights bear on health care decision-making.
And Dr. Nadine Caron, a surgical oncologist who is also Ojibway talks about First Nations patients who reject her cancer treatments – and the ethical dilemma she faces when that happens. You can hear Dr. Goldman’s extended interview with Dr. Caron.
White Coat Black Art
Dr. Nadine Caron Indepth Interview
00:00 / 15:56
Dr. Nadine Caron Indepth Interview15:56
‘I think there’s other ways where you can garner knowledge and wisdom. And the aboriginal ways of knowing are simply different…they are not wrong, they are different.” – Dr. Nadine Caron.
Source:: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/pastepisodes/makayla-s-choice-1.2809211?cmp=rss
