East African Virtual Summit

Here is something from a volunteer writer, Sogunle Omodamola. They attended the East African Virtual Improvement and Investment Summit on 27th April 2021. Below are summaries of 3 speeches from Amara Sophia Elahi, Nigel Crisp and Lesley Anne Long.

A speech by Amara Sophia Elahi…

IMPACT OF COVID-19 OF MEDICAL DIASPORA COMMUNITIES.

Elahi is a health and investigative reporter for BBC News. She introduced her recent work — Health Inequalities in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they’ve been significantly affected by the virus. She stated that 90% of doctors who had died from COVID-19, were of Black, Asian or Ethnic minority background (BAME) according to the British Medical Association (BMA). The same paper reported 119 NHS staff had died in April of 2020 (1).

The number of these deaths led to a research project exploring whether workplace and institutional factors might play a part in the disproportionate number of ethnic minority doctors’ deaths due to COVID-19.

The results from her research with frontline COVID-19 BAME doctors, showed dissatisfaction as appropriate PPE for their roles was inaccessible and “hundreds expressed they were not involved in the decision-making processes and were not well supported by management.” According to Elahi, once her research was published, NHS England sent a letter to all Trusts and CCGs to prioritize the risk assessment, particularly among BAME healthcare…