MP’S FROM various parties have demanded that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on black communities must be included in the long-awaited public inquiry.

A cross-party letter, co-ordinated by Bell Ribeiro-Addy,  MP for Streatham, calls on the government to ensure that the final terms of reference for their upcoming Covid Inquiry “provide for a thorough examination of the issues affecting minoritised communities and minoritised health and social care workers”.

Campaigners were dismayed when the consultation draft terms of reference for the inquiry failed to mention racial disparities despite the fact that black African and Caribbean people were three times more likely to die from COVID.

Now the government has been urged by 39 MPs from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party to include the impact of race inequality.

The inquiry will play a key role in learning the lessons from the pandemic and informing the government’s preparations for the future.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “There are 178,000 reasons why we need comprehensive Covid inquiry that leaves no stone unturned and no community left behind.

“We need to understand what has happened and more importantly, exactly why it has happened, so that we can stop it from happening again.”

Ribeiro-Addy continued: “From the disproportionate numbers of black and brown NHS workers dying to the surge in Black youth unemployment and the death of Belly Mujinga, the pandemic has shown that racism in our country is still a matter of life and death. Any meaningful Covid inquiry will put racial disparities front and centre.” 

The pandemic has shown that racism in our country is still a matter of life and death.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy

The letter also urges the government to give the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations (FEMHO), a body which represents 40 different black and ethnic minority health and social care organisations, Care Provider status to allow for its participation in the inquiry.

Leading FEMHO members believe the organisation’s expertise, and extensive network can play a key role in the inquiry and help shape its conclusions.

Understanding

They said this is critical to properly understanding the disproportionate impact that the pandemic had on people from black and minority ethnic communities.

During the first wave of the pandemic, ethnic minority health and social care workers were particularly hard hit.

Despite making up only 20.7 percent of the NHS workforce, Black, Asian, and ethnic minority healthcare professionals accounted for 63 percent of all Covid deaths in the early stages of the epidemic, according to Health Service Journal.

And research from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre into the patients critically ill with COVID-19 in UK hospitals published in April 2020 found that has indicated that black and minority ethnic people were at higher risk of suffering complications of the disease than white people.

This was a major source of concern for health authorities and equality campaigners.

Following an earlier letter signed by from the charity Race Equality Foundation, the Caribbean and African Health Network, the Ubele Foundation and others, Baroness Hallet who will be chairing the inquiry, acknowledged these concerns.

She recommended that the Terms of Reference be rewritten to make the pandemic’s unequal impact on Black and minority ethnic people central to the inquiry. Baroness Hallett is waiting for prime minister Boris Johnson to approve her request to update the terms of reference.

Focus

Jabeer Butt, Chief Executive of the Race Equality Foundation, echoed Ribeiro-Addy’s call to for the government to ensure that the final terms of reference for the Covid Inquiry include a strong focus on race inequality.

He told The Voice: “There have been three reports published by Public Health England since 2020 that have looked at issues to do with the experience of black Asian and minority ethnic communities during the pandemic. And each of those reports has tried to explain away the disproportionate impact it had on these communities either by suggesting that we need to look again at the numbers, or that there are other factors at play.

“They point to things like poor housing conditions, or other forms of illness that exacerbated the effect of Covid rather than actually looking at racial inequality as being an explanation of its disproportionate impact on minorities.”

Inequality

Butt continued: “The wider evidence suggests that many of the factors these reports have identified are actually the result of racial inequality. For example, the experience of poor housing for black Asian and minority ethnic communities, even to this day, is the result of racial inequality.

“Because of their experience of poverty, their ability to secure better accommodation is restricted. That experience of poverty is impacted by racial inequality. So you can point to these other factors but behind them is often racial inequality.”

He went on: “When terrible things happen the question has to be what are we going to do next? And that is dependent on the lessons learned as to why things went wrong. Without a specific focus on racial inequality, you’re not going to understand why the pandemic had such a disproportionate impact on minority communities. And you’re not going to put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”