Who is Healthcare Designed for?

Who is Healthcare Designed for? 
Closing Gaps in Health Inequity Through Nursing Leadership

Dr. Oluwabukola (Bukola) Salami is a nurse and Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black and Racialized Peoples' Health.

Visit this page for more details about this event in the fall.

Health inequities in Canada persist along intersecting lines of racism, gender, income, and immigration status. Black and racialized people in Canada experience persistent health inequities with measurable consequences: poorer access to care, delayed diagnoses, and worse health outcomes. Racism – structural, institutional, and interpersonal – is a fundamental determinant of health, and its costs are borne not only by racialized communities but by overall population health. These inequities are not accidental; they reflect a healthcare system that was not designed with all Canadians in mind.

The question, then, is not only how inequity is produced, but who has the responsibility – and the capacity – to redesign the systems that sustain them. As Canada’s largest health profession, with a unique reach across clinical care, education, research, and policy, nursing is uniquely positioned to lead this redesign. This lecture argues that closing gaps in health equity is not a peripheral concern for nursing but a defining test of its leadership. 

Drawing on her work as the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black and Racialized Peoples’ Health, Dr. Bukola Salam will explore nursing leadership across four interconnected levels: clinical leadership that embeds culturally safe, anti-racist practice at the point of care; organizational leadership that diversifies the workforce and dismantles barriers facing internationally educated and racialized nurses; academic leadership that transforms curricula and mentors the next generation of equity-focused scholars; and policy leadership that brings nursing voices to boards, government advisory bodies, and national strategy. Together, these four domains position nursing to move equity from aspiration to infrastructure.

The lecture concludes with a call to action: advancing health equity is among the defining leadership challenges for nursing. As clinicians, educators, researchers, advocates, and policy leaders, nurses have both the opportunity and the responsibility to help redesign health systems so they work for everyone.

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