Uprooting medical violence: How to build an anti-oppressive praxis in safer supply programs

The National Safer Supply Community of Practice is hosting a virtual event today, October 7th, from 12 to 1:30 pm.

Speaker: Dr. Nanky Rai

Register for this virtual event.

About this event

This fantastic talk will challenge us all to develop an approach to safer supply programs that challenge oppressive practices in health care and that does not replicate or amplify power and privilege as it exists in society. Come away with a better understanding of how medical violence operates, the systems of power that enable violence in our health care settings, and strategies uprooting oppression and growing health justice.

This is part of the NSS-CoP's Inaugral Speaker and Workshop Series: Safer Supply 101.

About the speaker

Nanky Rai is a migrant settler from India-occupied Kashmir who is formally trained in public health and practices as a primary care physician in Toronto, on lands that should remain under the full jurisdiction of the Wendat, the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit nations. She works closely with 2SLGBTQIA+ communities including Black, Indigenous and other racialized queer, trans and gender nonconforming people, those who use drugs, those who are unhoused and or undocumented, and those living with the infectious complications of structural violence such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.

She has been active in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist grassroots movements for migrant and health justice for over 10 years. She is a member of the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society which set up unsanctioned Overdose Prevention Sites in Toronto as a response to the devastating overdose crisis. Her academic work focuses on conducting historical analyses of structural violence embedded within health care and learning from grassroots responses towards health equity.

She is passionate about building anti-oppressive medical education and clinical practice, health activism and harm reduction. Nanky is also the 2SLGBTQIA+ Health Education Theme Lead with the Undergraduate Medical Education program at University of Toronto.