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.

An exploration of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in Canadian health care and the medical establishment's role in colonial genocide.

About the Author
Samir Shaheen-Hussain is assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University and works as a pediatric emergency physician in Montreal (Tio'tia:ke).

Reviews

"Anyone who thinks that racism in Canada is more benign than it is in the United States--or that Canada has left its genocidal policies in the past--must read Samir Shaheen-Hussain's new book. Fighting for A Hand to Hold is an engaging and well-documented analysis of medical colonialism that deserves further discussion and, most important, action." Canadian Dimension

"Fighting for a Hand to Hold is important in encouraging us to reflect and rethink it. Samir's call for the decolonisation of health care would entail reparations for Indigenous nations, which includes the return of land and sovereignty over the labour of care. Indigenous land defenders fighting colonial development, Indigenous projects of food sovereignty and agroecology, and the resurgence of Indigenous traditional knowledge, including practices of healing, all point to the importance of reclaiming sovereignty over care as pathways for decolonising health care." Race & Class

"Fighting for a Hand to Hold reveals systemic challenges through an approach that offers a holistic look at the structures that hold injustices in place. Inspired by patients, Shaheen-Hussain examines the impacts of medical colonialism on the lives of Indigenous young people. This book made me think about how we can create the change that is necessary to address the anti-Indigenous racism of Canada's past and present." Margo Greenwood, The Lancet

Awards
Winner of The Quebec Writers' Federation 2021 Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction and Concordia University First Book Prize 2021 (Canada).



Book Information
ISBN 9780228003601
Author Samir Shaheen-Hussain
Format Hardback
Page Count 360
Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press