I very much appreciate the opportunity to answer that question. It's been an exceptionally difficult time for our patients, especially for indigenous people living off reserve. I do work as well with the Musqueam First Nation doing on-reserve primary care. I think the pandemic has been especially difficult for indigenous people off reserve, because they haven't had the same opportunities to safely stay home and safety quarantine. Many of our urban families are living in very crowded environments. This shows up in the data. We've seen higher rates of infection, higher rates of hospitalization and higher rates of death among indigenous people living off reserve. I believe that's all across Canada, but it's certainly true here in B.C.
I'm sure the committee is aware of the recent “In Plain Sight” report in B.C. It's a report into indigenous-specific racism in the health care system here in B.C. This is certainly not a situation that's unique to B.C. Health care spaces are in general a very difficult place for indigenous people to access at a baseline. There is, unfortunately, still very much a culture within health care spaces that is very toxic and not very welcoming for indigenous people. Many of us don't have a sense of safety walking into these environments, be it a walk-in clinic, an emergency room or a community health centre to seek the care we need. Add to that the burden of the pandemic and the difficulties of accessing care safely from an infectious disease point of view, and it's meant that a lot of our patients are even further isolated from the care they need.
I would say that it just further increases the need for centres like ours to be able to provide that culturally focused care, that safe care. The majority of our health care providers are indigenous. The ones who aren't are very strong allies who have had cultural safety training and have developed those trusting relationships with our patients too. We've been doing certainly more virtual care and trying to do more safe outreach care to our patient population. We are working very hard to vaccinate as many people as we can in the community. Certainly, it's been an exceptionally difficult time over the last 15 months.