NOT A BYSTANDER

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Dr. Chandrakant Shah, professor emeritus at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, is a retired physician, a public health practitioner and an advocate for improving the health and well-being of marginalized groups in Canadian society.

He was a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, the University of Toronto. After retiring from the University, he worked at the Anishnawbe Health Centre from 2001-2016, where he provided primary health care to the Indigenous community in Toronto; and also researched urban Indigenous health issues. 

To Change the World, published in 2023, is a captivating account – written in his characteristic self-deprecating humorous style – tracing his journey from a small town in Maharashtra, India, to professor of public health at the University of Toronto.

Desi News readers know Dr Shah through his column Senior Moment, and, full disclosure, I have known him and admired his work for close to twenty years now. However, the memoir revealed many aspects of his work and life that I wasn’t aware of.

For instance, I knew that he was presented with the Eagle Feather in recognition of his work with the Indigenous community, but not that he was also given an Indigenous spirit name, Maamaazhii N’iamh Manidoo Aki or “conquered his spirit on earth”. It is given to those who, having conquered their spirit on earth, truly know who they are. Or that an Indigenous woman referred to him as Healer Shah.

Other highlights of a remarkable career revealed in the book:

• He successfully challenged a proposed bylaw by which the medical licensing body in Ontario sought to ban internationally-trained physicians who were already Canadian citizens from moving from other provinces to Ontario.

• He studied the impact of spirituality on health and was instrumental in the inclusion of courses on the subject at many medical schools in Canada and the US.

• He campaigned for a greater inclusion of Indigenous history in the citizenship guide.

• He has worked tirelessly to highlight the impact of unconscious bias and relates the case of a sixty-five year old Indigenous woman who was labelled “drunken” at two emergency rooms – she had early symptoms of stroke.

• He shares another case, that of a patient with high blood sugar levels who missed scheduled appointments, to explain cultural safety. The man was living on welfare and had to choose between the bus fare or food for the day.

Dr Shah would go on to study the impact of urban environments on the health of Indigenous peoples. Participants in the studies he conducted shared feelings of helplessness, of feeling trapped in grief, and stories of abuse.

His research and advocacy work on employment equity had a profound impact on Canadian universities’ hiring policy of visible minorities as professors. He authored the first Canadian textbook on public health. The sixth edition now has his name emblazoned on the cover: Shah’s Public Health and Preventive Health Care in Canada.

While all of these helped change systems and policies, Dr Shah also lists his failures. And the lessons he took forward to later campaigns.

Becoming aware of gasoline sniffing in children as young as four in remote Indigenous communities, he contacted the Petroleum Association of Canada to ask if they would consider additives that induce nausea and vomiting, as had been successfully done in Australia to prevent a similar issue. They were willing and eager to help but the project fell through due to various factors. As did his plan to open a bakery that would provide iron-fortified bread to improve the diet of Indigenous peoples.

“Let me reveal a secret: I am a chapati eater. I do not like ordinary bread and hardly ever eat it, and here I was planning a bakery business!”

That also fell through, but he still harbours a hope that it will come to fruition.

Dr Shah also overcame many challenges arising from the fact that a first-generation immigrant from a visible minority was attempting to influence social change.

And racism they faced as a newcomer family.

“None of our neighbours came to greet us, but a dentist’s wife took the trouble to warn us that in their neighbourhood they maintained their lawns and were concerned whether we would be able to do so too. I had a mind to inform her that we had two goats who would do the job!”

In the life accounts of many great men, the women are often mere footnotes, relegated to “I would not be where I am without her unstinting support” and such expressions of gratitude. What I loved about To Change the World is that Dr Shah writes extensively about his wife Sudha and the hurdles she faced as a general physician who had practised in India when she tried to qualify to practise in Canada. He calls it what it was, flagrant gender discrimination. He describes her loneliness, and the challenges she faced running their home and rasing their children as he moved from place to place, finding success in his field. His long absences caused friction between them and he confesses to a lasting regret about not having spent enough time with his family.

The book chronicles the life of a man who chose to be an active participant, not a bystander. A man whose work and convictions have changed the lives of countless people.