Theme 7: “I need respect for my traditional learning and communication style”
The final theme reflects the awareness of participants for the ways in which determinants of health, such as income, education, culture, influence their participation in decision making. During the interviews, all of the participants described how complex and interacting historical,political, and social issues influenced their care experiences. For instance, Chloe described language barriers and the complexity of past historical factors (residential schooling) as influencing and creating barriers to participation for community members when working with health care providers: “In my [community], how we use language is different...and if we use it, we are considered unintelligent [gives example of how language translates
into a different structure in English]. Others who are not from our community make fun of this and then...they
[community members] are demeaned.” Elizabeth explained how she had experienced barriers to care, as the health care
system seemed to discount or discredit Aboriginal peoples’ traditions, knowledge or perspectives: “The person with the
most knowledge within an Aboriginal community may have no education, but they are much smarter than you or I”.