Truth and reconciliation: Healthcare organizational leadership

Abstract

Health leaders in organizational governance have a key role in enacting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. This discussion highlights historical and contemporary truths that can underpin action for addressing colonial impacts on Indigenous (First Nations, Metis, and Inuit) health outcomes and healthcare. Emphasis is on white settler roles and responsibilities, where health-related Calls provide a blueprint for health reconciliation leadership. There is broad agreement of the necessity to acknowledge and address key cornerstones of decolonization at individual, intermediary, and organizational stages: racism, white settler power and privilege, and cultural safety. Already existing leadership roles, responsibilities, and inter-organizational networks can form a solid foundation for health leaders to bring the Calls to the table—alongside First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples, in meetings, forums, and conferences and in lobbying efforts to influence the structural, systemic shape, and direction of healthcare in Canada.