EDMONTON — Lawyers have filed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging abuse at Indian Hospitals run decades ago by the federal government.
A statement of claim filed in Toronto says Indigenous patients suffered consistent physical and sexual assaults at the 29 hospitals from 1945 until the last one closed in 1981.
The suit further alleges patients were deprived of food and drink, force fed their own vomit and restrained in their beds.
The lead plaintiff in the case, Ann Hardy of Edmonton, was 10 when she was admitted to the city's Charles Camsell hospital for tuberculosis in 1969.
The suit says she was repeatedly sexually abused by medical technicians and witnessed other patients being abused.
A statement of defence has yet to be filed and a judge must first approve the suit as a class action.
