Northern Health under fire after offensive commenter claims to work for them

Disclaimer: Language may be offensive to some readers

It may be a case of mistaken identity, but it still didn’t bode well for Northern Health this week.

The authority has been getting emails and calls from concerned members of the public after some offensive posts were made on a news article.

The profile, under the name ‘Addison Ryan,’ lists Northern Health as their employer, though Eryn Collins, spokesperson for the authority, said they couldn’t find an employee under that name.

Ironically, the commenter was posting on an article discussing racism in the Northern healthcare system on the MyPGNow website.

The comments included referring to the Indigenous population as the “alcoholic drug using population,” and that they are a drain on the healthcare system.

“I can absolutely understand why people would have been very concerned about that, not only the public but our staff at Northern Health,”said Collins. 

“We organizationally have a commitment to ensure that our healthcare environments are culturally safe, and that people are being treated with respect and that we honour diversity, and to see comments like that being made and being attributed to our organization, especially when it appears that is not the case, it’s very discouraging.”

Collins said it would be speculation to say what may have happened should the user have been an employer of theirs as this is a unique situation.

“I don’t know what specific consequences someone might face, it would depend on a number of factors, including if this was a pattern of behaviour. Our disciplinary processes are progressive in nature.”

She said it would depend on who a staff member were, and in what environment they worked, and what type of policy in general they may have been in violation of. 

Ryan appears to have deleted both her comments and her profile since the incident.