[Music]
these are some of the healthcare
professionals
who have paid the ultimate price while
doing their jobs
during the pandemic
in the course of the crisis we have
learned the coronavirus has taken a
heavy toll
on people from black asian and minority
ethnic communities
recent public health england data shows
that more than 10 months into the
pandemic
non-white groups still have a higher age
adjusted mortality rate
than their white counterparts many
health care workers fighting the virus
on the front line are part of these
minority ethnic communities
is a radiologist of indian descent she
lives in lancaster
with her husband a surgeon and her son a
medical student
she and her husband fell sick with kovid
during the first wave
however it very nearly cost sangeeta her
life
i went to emergency department
late march around 26th or 27th
that time and
came back home on 17th of july
so the time period i don't remember
i'm one of the most fortunate person to
survive this disease
after going through a very severe form
of it
it was my family who suffered more than
me
at that time they were called at least
three times to say goodbye to me when i
was in ventilator
they have to go through discussions of
do not resuscitate kind of
uh situation it was like you know being
pulled back from the jaws of death
actually that's what it was
having lost her voice and the ability to
walk during her ordeal
sangeeta says her nhs trust has been
exemplary and supportive to both her
and her family but not all minority
ethnic healthcare workers
have had the same positive experience as
sangeeta
the british medical association has
expressed particular concern
about the way vaccines are being rolled
out for doctors working in hospitals
our surveys have been asking doctors
whether they've received
um the first dose of the vaccine or the
second dose
and what we're finding is that
significant numbers of doctors have now
received their first dose when we asked
whether there was any
increase in uptake uh based upon high
risk factor or uh bame status
there's been no difference shown between
those uh baby doctors who received the
vaccine
uh and and and their um white
counterparts
we feel that what we should have been
seeing is a very clear
prioritization of those who are at
highest risk
uh getting the vaccine first so that
they could be
protected to carry on working on the
front line
the government has been guided by the
independent advisory group
the joint committee on vaccination and
immunization
when deciding who is prioritized in the
vaccine rollout
frontline health and social care workers
are in the second priority group
the jcvi has also advised the vaccines
can be deployed locally
with regard to mitigating health
inequalities within each priority group
such as the height and risk faced by
people from minority ethnic backgrounds
i spoke to one minority ethnic medic who
works daily on a coronavirus ward in
london
he agreed to speak to us on the
condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisals from his trust
we are calling him raj his experience
illustrates
some of the bma's concerns in my
organization i have not been made aware
of any kind of prioritizing
so when it comes to the vaccine i feel
no one has any priority within the
workforce
crucially raj has underlying health
conditions
he told me that when it comes to his
hospital assessing his height and risk
during the pandemic the process has been
lacking
have they made any attempt to find out
about your health
these risk assessment have not been done
the way they had been intended to
so in reality i can't speak for the
whole organization
but in my experience i have completed
the form only with the information part
there is supposed to be a meeting with
the manager or someone from the
employer's behalf
these meetings have not been taking
place members have completed the forms
with their personal details and
submitted to their manager
and the matter ended at that point which
has no significance whatsoever
it should not be a box ticking exercise
in recent weeks newsnight has been
speaking to a range of ethnic minority
healthcare professionals across england
they share the same concerns as raj
about risk assessments amounting to what
he calls a box ticking exercise
as does annel jine who is on the british
medical association's equality and
inclusion advisory group
i mean what i see is quite a bit of
fatigue in the system and
we are hearing from our members that a
lot of time risk assessment treatment
exercise you know
our ask is that meticulous risk
assessment should be undertaken
and then on the basis of that
mitigation should be agreed with the
health and social care worker with our
members you know
if risk assessments are undertaken but
mitigation is not
agreed or supported that doesn't work
very well
with the nhs stretched to the seams
during the recent wave
characterized by a newer potentially
more deadly variant
losing minority ethnic staff to covet
can only make the fight against
coronavirus harder
after all a fifth of our nhs workers are
from black asian and minority ethnic
backgrounds
but how easy is it to keep minority
groups on the front line when we still
don't know precisely
why they have been so badly affected by
this virus
yasminarican well we put the bma's
concerns relating to vaccination and
risk assessment to nhs england
a spokesperson says we want all staff to
be offered and then to accept
covert vaccination and staff uptake is
going well
the nhs set out clear guidelines to all
local trusts in april
and they must carry out risk assessments
following nhs employers guidelines
for bame staff and other at-risk groups
and this happened the department of
health and social care told us that nhs
organizations are working tirelessly to
protect all healthcare staff
and particularly those vital colleagues
from particular communities
who've been disproportionately impacted
by the pandemic