affectionately known as the father of
emergency medicine in Derbyshire 52 year
old Manjeet Singh Rianne was the UK's
first seek a A&E consultant he rose to
become head of emergency services here
yet despite the pressures of the role
colleagues say he always maintained a
dry sense of humor
inspirational one of these people that
created joy on the shop floor of the
emergency department he enjoyed the
intellectual challenge encyclopedic
knowledge of emergency medicine shaped
whole generation of junior doctors in
the emergency department mr. riah was
well respected nationally credited with
contributing to the birth of academic
emergency medicine and yet he was always
extremely modest about his professional
achievements his cousin told me today
that the consultant was at heart a
family man married with two sons of whom
he was fiercely proud and he was also
the first seek any consultant you must
be very proud of that the consultants
death means that at least 100 health and
care workers have now died with
coronavirus that's according to a
nursing website that's been recording
fatalities since the outbreak began a
bigger far higher than the 27 publicly
verified by the government a
disproportionately high number have been
from black Asian and minority ethnic
backgrounds for the first time this week
NHS England have released data showing
the ethnic breakdown of those who have
died with coronavirus it suggests that
around 16 percent are from an ethnic
background confirming what some
professionals now believe that the
impact of this crisis is not being felt
equally across all community
some of those who worked with mr. riah
say they support the government's
announcement of a review into why people
from ethnic minorities are disturbingly
and disproportionately affected by the
disease I think the unable to meet at
the good word mister reacts family will
tonight hold online prayers for him he
was a prominent member of the local Sikh
community and particularly close to his
extended family mr. riah died at the
Royal Derby the same hospital where he
had so for two decades darkness on a
Channel 4 News
well Jones sadly is the co-chair of the
NHS equality and diversity Council and
director of partnerships and equality at
the NHS Confederation she joins me now
from Chingford obviously all deaths from
this virus or a terrible individual
tragedy for families and colleagues but
there has been increasing concern about
the disproportionate number of black and
ethnic minority health care workers you
share it I'm assuming yes I do share it
and let me first say I think it's great
that we're now getting data from NHS
England and improvement we do need to
work together on that data and that
shows the Willing that we need to solve
this problem it's a huge unexpected
problem it's the global pandemic and we
do need to work together with the data
that we have I mean that data seems to
me to have been slow in coming yes and
there's more that should be coming what
we do know is that we're now building on
the data that we have we know that the
critically ill patients we know that
we're
least 34 percent represented in critical
care we're now getting data about deaths
and we still don't have data recorded of
ethnicity on death certificate so these
are some of the things that we will be
tackling essentially and must indeed
happen but that sorts of information is
surely needed critically if you're to
prevent future deaths yes and for all
communities actually this this kind of
highlights not just for BME populations
but for all of the population if you
don't have the data then you can't solve
the problem and so there is something
about not just having the data but
intelligently using it because frankly
we know that baby populations are
over-represented when it comes to
pneumonia disease in some respects 13%
over the general population and now we
have a 34 percent critical illness in
Kovac 19 related critical care so how do
we use the data better that we have got
we need to start doing that straight
away I mean those numbers are so stark
do you have that does the world of
medicine have any idea why they're so
stark some ideas but it's best not to
start making things up so we know that
underlying health conditions such as
asthma heart disease diabetes BMI
populations will present at a higher
level we also know that outside of
healthcare there are socioeconomic
factors well reported by Michael Marmot
in his report about socioeconomic
conditions but actually consultants
healthcare condition health care workers
and nurses right across the scale of
economics you know some are paid very
well and some are not so this isn't just
a simple correlation and we do want to
get to the bottom of a disease that
really is quite frightening as you say
it is right across from from well-paid
consultants but there are a number of
very low paid health care workers who I
think up until now will have felt that
many people viewed them to be low
valued that term low-skilled do you
think this changes any of that I think
it must the low value the hostility that
vme people face and they do day to day
the reality of the microaggressions we
face the staff who will report in our
workforce race equality standard reports
that they face more discrimination and
harassment these are realities and we do
want them recognized we want the anxiety
recognized for the whole population but
more so fear me staff who on the front
lines and scared that they won't go home
this is not acceptable so much more to
talk about but Joan Sadler for now thank
you very much for talking to us thank
you