84). Inequitable access to health for many Aboriginal people is further complicated by systemic barriers to accessing the health care they need, including racism, poverty, social exclusion and discrimination among other factors (Browne & Tang, 2008, p. 110). My experience as a student nurse helped me understand the importance of forming evidence-based judgments or diagnosis on patients to provide the care that suits for their condition. Race, just like all other determinants of health, is a very essential information to be considered included in our assessment care map in order to plan and implement the right interventions for them. For example, signs and symptoms of cyanosis, or the skin discoloration poor circulation or inadequate oxygenation of the blood, for dark-skinned patients may appear as gray or whitish (instead bluish) skin around the mouth (Barbarito, D’Amico, Harder, & Twomey, 2012, p. 185). However, using a patient’s race to create biased assumptions that compromise the safety and quality of care they provide is a different story. Unfortunately, health care providers often take this issue …show more content…
Being fatally ignored by people whom he expect to save his life could be very inexplicable and shocking at the same time considering the huge improvement in our medical technology over the past few decades. The fact that many nursing staff saw him and none of them still assumed to he was waiting for care (despite the urgings from security staff and other ER patients) is a serious indication that systemic racism and stereotypes insidiously operates in the health care system influencing the way medical professionals provide care to their patients which is supposed to be unbiased and free from prejudice. Perhaps, he could be considered as one of the patients who had experienced the most unremarkable and unjust treatment in our health care system today. But who is Brian Sinclair before he became one of the faces of the greatest social injustices in Canada? What are the other lurking factors that led him to his death in context of his