top of page
Creativity & Connection

Downtown Eastside - Katarina Wind

Updated: Jun 24, 2020

Relief

is a parking spot

right out front.

I don’t need to

hurry past, head down

“those scary people”

Shadows in the alleyways

Chorea dancing down the street

Shopping carts rattle the sidewalk

Only 3 blocks from the Gastown glitz

double check that you’ve locked the

car doors.

But confined to the

small clinic chair

he’s not scary

Objective:

minimal eye contact

dressed warmly but dishevelled

one-to-two word answers

agitated

I’m here to help

but what can I really do

methadone prescription

blood work

a smile

end of the first day

I walk outside

something has changed

I’m not afraid

“those scary people”

are my

Patients


 

Growing up in Vancouver, I was implicitly taught to fear the homeless; especially residents of the Downtown Eastside. I was taught to cross the street if someone was acting strangely, and to never walk alone in certain places. While safety is important, this subconscious teaching of "otherness" forms a large part of the systematic discrimination that marginalized populations face. It is effortless to go about our lives, particularly as a white person, ignoring and fearing certain populations. A privilege of practicing medicine is being forced to confront how societal norms have created preventable tragedies, including the opioid crisis and police brutality. The first step is seeing each other as human, and recognizing that we are all on the same team.


 

Author Bio: Katarina is a Family Medicine resident at Saint Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. 

284 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Moon rising over water totems in the park an eagle soaring highly the soft call of signing lark We choose to only notice beauty see only what we see fit I think you might agree knowing only one dimens

I was shown a creation story it started on the back of a turtle and it moves just as slow Centuries and generations of people given no room to grow See this story isn’t about crow, coyote, or bear it’

bottom of page