Indigenous-run mobile clinic aims to improve health-care access in Quebec

Don't you see this mobile clinic aims to be a crucial link to the healthcare system in Quebec. I believe that we're the first Indigenous for and by Indigenous people. Mobile clinic run by the region's Native Friendship Center, the clinic will serve Indigenous patients in urban areas with access to doctors and nurses, as well as social services, education, support and traditional healers. To be able to go towards the people where they are and make sure that they have services that they need and. Also, considering we're in such a large region, it makes a lot of the services inaccessible for a huge portion of the population. It comes nearly four years after the death of Joyce Eshaquan and a Tikamak mother of seven who filmed this video as healthcare workers hurled racist insults at her shortly before she died in the Joliet hospital. It highlighted the the insecurities that Indigenous people feel when they're accessing services in the region. We need to ensure cultural safety for Indigenous people when accessing health services. Further, that doesn't Lorraine Eshaquan says Joyce was her cousin and best friend. She says the mobile clinic will really help the off Reserve, a Tickame community build trust in the healthcare system, which has been hard to do since Joyce's death. It's impossible to talk about cultural safety and not talking about. Josie Shaquan, Quebec's Indigenous affairs minister, acknowledges there's still a lot of work to do. But he says this clinic, funded by the national and provincial Native Friendship Center associations, is part of that, starting in Juliette. I think it means a lot because this is where. The overall took place, but this is also where a lot of change take place. Jennifer Brazzo says the mobile clinic isn't meant to replace hospitals, but to be a port of entry to the healthcare services Indigenous patients have a right to receive. Allison Northcott, CBC News, Joliet, Quebec.