Concerns raised about 'disproportionate' coronavirus impact on NHS ethnic minority staff
As the coronavirus crisis continues to pummel the UK’s under-resourced National Health Service (NHS), there are growing concerns about the exceptionally high mortality rate amongst Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) medical professionals.
The concerns come on the heels of the latest reported NHS casualty, Melujean Ballestros, who worked as a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington (London).
In keeping with the vast majority of NHS casualties, Ballestros, who was originally from the Philippines, belongs to the BAME category.
The situation is so bad that the head of the British Medical Association (BMA) is urging the government to investigate if and why people belonging to the BAME category are more likely to die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
I’ll be going on air @BBCr4today 8.40 a.m to discuss investigating disproportionate #COVID19 serious illness and healthcare worker deaths in BAME population and healthcare workers https://t.co/sy3f7odz4P
— Chaand Nagpaul (@CNagpaul) April 13, 2020
Dr Chaand Nagpaul’s intervention comes in the wake of the coronavirus-related deaths of ten doctors, all of whom belong to the BAME category, with ancestry from regions including Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The 100 percent BAME death rate amongst doctors, in addition to a disproportionately high BAME nurse death toll, is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that BAME staff make up around 44 percent of all NHS medical personnel.
Dr Nagpaul made the following statement to the Guardian on April 10: “At face value, it seems hard to see how this can be random – to have the first 10 doctors of all being of BAME background”.
“Not only that, we also know that in terms of the BAME population, they [ethnic minorities] make up about a third of those in intensive care”, Dr Nagpaul added.
The opposition Labour party appears to share Dr Nagpaul’s concerns, with the shadow women and equalities secretary, Marsha de Corva, describing the disproportionately high death toll of NHS BAME staff as “deeply disturbing”.
There is "emerging evidence" to suggest coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on people who are black, Asian and minority ethnic #COVID19 https://t.co/ySyLs9vVxZ
— Marsha de Cordova MP (@MarshadeCordova) April 13, 2020
“It reflects the shocking underlying inequalities facing BAME communities as a whole, who are disproportionately represented in the numbers of people getting the virus”, the shadow women and equalities secretary added.
Similar to Dr Nagpaul, de Cordova is calling on the government to “urgently investigate” the drivers and causes as to why “BAME communities” are “more vulnerable to this virus”.
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