Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care

Join us at the Montreal Institute for Human Rights Studies for the timely launch of Gary Geddes' new book, Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care.

Published in 2017, the Year of Reconciliation, the book is based on Geddes' investigations across Canada, where he interviewed Indigenous elders willing to share their experiences of segregated health care, including their treatment in the "Indian hospitals" that existed from coast to coast for over half a century.

The memories recounted by these survivors – from gratuitous drug and surgical experiments to electroshock treatments intended to destroy the memory of sexual abuse – are truly harrowing, and will surely shatter any lingering illusions about the virtues or good intentions of our colonial past. Yet, this is more than just the painful history of a once-so-called vanishing people (a people who have resisted vanishing despite the best efforts of those in charge); it is a testament to survival, perseverance and the power of memory to keep history alive and promote the idea of a more open and just future.

Gary Geddes has written and edited more than 45 books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation, and anthologies and won a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), the Lt-Governor's Award for Literary Excellence and the Gabriela Mistral Prize. His non-fiction books include Letters from Managua, Sailing Home, Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things, Drink the Bitter Root and Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care. His most recent books of poetry are Falsework, Swimming Ginger, What Does A House Want? and The Resumption of Play.

Geddes has a PhD from the University of Toronto and has taught at Concordia University, Western Washington University and the University of Victoria. He has been a writer-in-residence at UBC and the Vancouver Public Library. He lives on Thetis Island, BC.