NHS accused of racism as black nurses report being put in Covid areas
The NHS has been accused of “shocking and systemic” racism during the pandemic as black healthcare workers say they were given poor PPE and pushed into the Covid frontline first.
Hundreds of black and brown healthcare staff across the UK have spoken to academics at Sheffield Hallam University about their experiences of racism during the pandemic.
The accounts raised issues of racism within the health service which led to black and brown nurses and midwives being put at greater risk than their white colleagues, due to poorer PPE, training, workload and shift patterns.
Rosalie Sanni-Ajose, a senior theatre practitioner, who worked across multiple London NHS hospitals through an agency called Yourworld told The Independent: “During the pandemic, we found that most of us (black agency nurses) have been placed in ITU to look after Covid patients are on a Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine or the ventilator."
“Then when I work in A&E, they divided areas into sections - green area, red area, and the normal areas. So some of the ethnic minority staff were then put in the red areas all the time. Further some of us, we have comorbidities like asthma, or diabetes, or have an exemption that has been clearly stated they not allowed to work there.”
Through its research, which involved 350 black and brown nurses, midwives and healthcare staff across the UK, Sheffield Hallam University found 77% of respondents said they’d been treated unfairly when they challenged racism.
Just over 50% of the respondents said they’d experienced unfair treatment in the pandemic in relation to Covid deployment, PPE or risk assessment.
One third have left their job as a result of racism, while more than half have experienced poor mental health due to the racism they experienced.
The academic team, lead by Professor Anandi Ramamurthy said the healthcare professionals’ reports reveal “a story of systematic neglect and harassment which predates the pandemic.”
Source: The Independent, 5 March 2022