{"id":3742,"date":"2025-10-28T00:45:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/28\/500-indigenous-people-in-sask-have-complained-about-accessing-health-care-report\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T00:45:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:45:50","slug":"500-indigenous-people-in-sask-have-complained-about-accessing-health-care-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/28\/500-indigenous-people-in-sask-have-complained-about-accessing-health-care-report\/","title":{"rendered":"500 Indigenous people in Sask. have complained about accessing health care: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Canada News (Embed only)The First Nations health ombudsperson Diane Lafond said she\u2019s received around 500 complaints in the two years since the office opened. The majority come from remote northern Indigenous communities.\u2019We see people that are sitting in the waiting rooms for 12, 15, 20 hours.\u2019Halyna Mihalik  \u00b7 Halyna Mihalik  \u00b7 Posted: Oct 27, 2025 8:11 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe main complaints come from remote northern communities that face unexpected hospital closures frequently. (Don Somers\/CBC)The Saskatchewan First Nations health ombudsperson says there\u2019s still a lot of work to be done in addressing discrimination in the province\u2019s health-care system.Ombudsperson Dianne Lafond released a report that the independent office has been working on, with findings from July 2023 to March 31, 2025.In the two years since the office opened, it has received around 500 complaints from Indigenous people who have faced challenges accessing the help they need in the medical field. Lafond said 64 per cent of the cases derived from complaints and issues associated with the services of the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).She said the majority of the complaints come from remote northern communities that have never been in proximity to health-care access and finally have a space to voice their concerns.\u201cSome of the complaints are from rural hospitals [whose] doors are closed so there\u2019s no access to services,\u201d Lafond said at a Monday media conference in Saskatoon.\u201cFrom the reports that I\u2019m receiving, they can be closed at any given time due to no staffing.\u201dDianne Lafond, the First Nations health ombudsperson for Saskatchewan, speaks at a news conference to reveal the findings of a two-year report. (Don Somers\/CBC)Similar reports relating to hospital closures were also coming from central areas, like Shelbrooke. People in Saskatoon complained of wait times of longer than 20 hours.\u201cWe see people that are sitting in the waiting rooms for 12, 15, 20 hours, that are very sick and they end up going home because they\u2019re tired of waiting,\u201d Lafond said.\u201cI believe those pressures are being felt by everyone, but for Indigenous people, they\u2019re amplified from the stories that we\u2019re told.\u201dWATCH | SHA announced new policy this year to honour Indigenous hair traditions:Sask. Health Authority announces new policy to honour Indigenous hair traditionsThe policy is meant to protect the cultural and spiritual significance of hair for Indigenous patients in Saskatchewan health-care settings. Lafond said many people have also come forward with stories of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in the province\u2019s health-care system.\u201cWe definitely have whistleblowers that come in,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have families that have experienced those things in the hospitals and are too afraid to pursue [them].\u201dIt was implied at the news conference that this information has come from people who are still employed at health-care facilities and have signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) prohibiting them from making any formal complaint.\u201cIt silences the victim,\u201d said Heather Bear, chair of the office\u2019s board of directors. \u201cWe are working hard to ensure that at some point these NDAs are going to be banned so that people are not silenced.\u201dThe first of its kind in CanadaLafond\u2019s office is the only one of its kind in the country. She said although it\u2019s been a privilege to be a leader for other provinces, it\u2019s challenging to lead a one-of-a-kind initiative.\u201cWe haven\u2019t had benchmarks to compare to, or a road map of how we\u2019re gonna do this, but we\u2019ve done an amazing job,\u201d she said.\u201cThat\u2019s measured by the people that have come to our office, over 500, how they feel when they leave, how they can come into our boardrooms and smudge; we talk, we shed tears, but we heal.\u201dAs of Monday morning, the SHA said it had not seen a copy of the report but plans to review it.The SHA did not address CBC\u2019s questions about abuse allegations, but said in a written statement that it \u201cwill review their report and work with them to address their specific concerns.\u201dThe SHA\u2019s statement said it welcomes \u201cthe perspectives shared by the First Nations Health Ombudsperson as we continue working together toward a more accountable, culturally responsive, and inclusive health system for all.\u201dABOUT THE AUTHORHalyna Mihalik is a journalist and weather specialist for CBC Saskatchewan. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Regina. Halyna enjoys stories about advocacy, local politics and rural communities. Send Halyna news tips at halyna.mihalik@cbc.ca<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada News (Embed only)The First Nations health ombudsperson Diane Lafond said she\u2019s received around 500 complaints in the two years since the office opened. The majority come from remote northern Indigenous communities.\u2019We see people that are sitting in the waiting rooms for 12, 15, 20 hours.\u2019Halyna Mihalik \u00b7 Halyna Mihalik \u00b7 Posted: Oct 27, 2025 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,123,1],"tags":[116,122],"class_list":["post-3742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-saskatchewan","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-saskatchewan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}