UWI: COVID-19 presents opportunity to fix underlying race, class issues in health systems

ArchiveMay 6, 2020

7 min read

UWI: COVID-19 presents opportunity to fix underlying race, class issues in health systems

On April 27, The UWI hosted a virtual Vice-Chancellor’s Forum themed, Race, Class and COVID-19 to examine why some racial groups and socio-economic classes seem to be more vulnerable than others and what strategies are key to interrupting this worrying trend.

The forum brought together a panel of experts who presented the current situations in the Caribbean, US, UK and South America.

The recorded broadcast of the Discussion Forum: ‘Race, Class and COVID-19’ will air this weekend on UWItv’s cable channel on Flow EVO on Saturday, May 9, and Sunday, May 10, at 9:00 p.m. EC time.

See PR below:

Experts
at UWI Forum: COVID-19
presents opportunity to fix underlying race, class issues in health
systems

Regional
Headquarters Jamaica. Wednesday, 06 May 2020. With
over 3 million reported cases of COVID-19 worldwide, the virus’
impact on racial and ethnic groups is still emerging. However,
internationally, reports have highlighted a disproportionate bearing
of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups. On
April 27, The University of the West Indies (The UWI) hosted a
virtual Vice-Chancellor’s Forum themed, Race,
Class and COVID-19 to examine
why some racial groups and socio-economic classes seem to be more
vulnerable than others and what strategies are key to interrupting
this worrying trend. The forum brought together a panel of experts
who presented the current situations in the Caribbean, US, UK and
South America. It was organised by Ambassador Dr Richard Bernal, Pro
Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Practice, Global Affairs at The UWI
along with the University’s Centre for Reparation Research and
moderated by Professor Rupert Lewis, Professor Emeritus and Director
of The UWI PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy.

Dr Kenneth
Connell, Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology, The UWI Cave Hill and
Chairman, Barbados National Drug Formulary Committee
who opened the presentations noted that the African Diaspora
generally bears an unusual burden when it comes to health, a
situation that appears to be magnified by the current health crisis.
Additionally, as at 2020, 80% percent of the world’s cardiovascular
disease burden is being felt by low to middle income countries with
vulnerable economies and health care systems like those in the
Caribbean.

Dr Connell stated
that COVID-19 offers the urgent opportunity to change this
circumstance in the Caribbean. His recommendations include
aggressively addressing individual barriers and using simple,
strategic messaging about health; agitating an immediate call to
action to drive political change, holding governments accountable;
disaggregating health data to identify potential biases specific to
race; acknowledging the historical forces that may now result in
perpetual vulnerability and continuing to activate for justice in all
communities of black, Asian and minority ethnic groups (BAME)
including reparatory justice.

Dr Melissa
Creary, Assistant Professor, Health Management and Policy from the
School of Public Health, University of Michigan
contextualised the case for African-Americans. She shared data which
show that African-Americans are disproportionately affected by the
virus. The US White House Coronavirus Task Force she said,
highlighted that this is due to underlying medical conditions and
that the US Surgeon General attributed conditions such as diabetes,
hypertension, obesity and asthma as key causes for why they end up in
the Intensive Care Units [ICU] and ultimately have higher death rates
from COVID-19.

Dr Creary
explained: “It’s important
to understand that while the numbers show the unequal burden, the
full picture is that other Americans also suffer from these
conditions.” She pointed out
that this racial disparity occurs often, and echoed Dr Connell’s
views that that COVID has actually exposed existing fault lines
within our societie. She added: “The
thing that is truly underlying in this narrative is the structural
inequities...this scenario of unequal burden which was in place
before COVID-19 became the latest threat.”
She also disclosed that among the structural inequities that exist
for African-Americans are higher rates of being uninsured; lower
median incomes that provide less economic cushion; limited access to
healthcare—limiting preventative care and testing; poorer quality
of care; systemic distrust with the healthcare system; racial
residential segregation and high risk jobs.

Professor
Anthony Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical
Theory, Director, Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice and
Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University,
in his presentation, echoed the point that pandemics tend to be
events which unmask a society’s ills, exposing weaknesses which are
hidden in plain sight. “It
has always been that way” he
said, adding that “If we look
back at the Spanish Flu which occurred from 1918-1920, at the end of
the First Imperial War, one would see that the pandemic also exposed
the vast inequalities in the US and many other societies.”
He stressed that even during that time, the death toll among
non-whites was much higher than that of whites; so the present
scenario is something that has a historical precedence.

Professor Bogues
also cited data from the Swiss Bank which shows that 1% of the world
controls 44% of the world’s wealth and suggested that we have to
consider what that means in terms of globalisation and questions of
health and inequality. He noted that we have also seen a lack of a
certain type of global cooperation to fight something that is a
global illness. He made mention of examples of US interventions in
transporting medical equipment from China headed to another country
and in another instance cargo meant for Barbados. He said there’s a
certain unravelling of an order that was established in the post-Cold
War (1991-1992) and it’s not just around trade and multilateralism
but rather include the ways in which inequality has ravaged many
nations around the world and at the heart of that equality are
communities of colour and we are now seeing this again in the
contemporary world.

Ms Esther
Ojulari, Human Rights and Displacement Consultant at the United
Nations, provided a Latin
American, specifically Colombian, perspective. “This
pandemic has given us an opportunity to think about the right to
health,” she stated. The
Human Rights and Displacement Consultant at the United Nations
affirmed that the systematic denial of the human rights of people of
African-descent is rooted in the ongoing colonial paradigm of racism
and is intricately related to the global economic system which puts
the interest of private profit over the lives and bodies of people of
African descent. She stated that the current crisis and its impact on
black communities reconfirms what black movements around the world
have been arguing historically and currently. Painting the picture of
the situation in her current location in the Pacific region of
Colombia, she said it has been historically marginalised,
underinvested in, lacks infrastructure and socioeconomic indicators
show it to be under the average of the country. This she said, is a
direct legacy of enslavement and structural racism.

The final
presentation was by
Priscellia Robinson, Barrister at Law, Queens Court Chambers (UK) and
a Human Rights Defender. She
presented the UK context of the BAME and COVID-19. Notably, she said
that the Windrush generation of persons from the Caribbean who
arrived in the UK between 1948 and 1971 and whose descendants still
live in the UK, comprise much of the BAME community. She cited recent
data which show that BAME patients account for a third of those in
hospital despite comprising only 14% of the population. In addition,
she said that black and ethnic minority victims account for 71% of
the overall National Health Service [NHS] COVID-19 deaths, despite
only making up 44% of the service workforce. Similar to the case of
African-Americans and people of African descent in the Pacific
Colombian region, she made reference to the historical societal
treatment of minorities in the UK and the fact that they are also
disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In conclusion, she
emphasised that action needs to be taken that leave no room for
another Windrush scandal.

In their closing
remarks, after fielding an impressive number of questions from the
online audience, the experts called for a meeting of minds to assist
in shaping the health care system post COVID-19, the examination and
creation of policies to address race and class issues and the right
to health, including disaggregating data in the health care systems
as well as ensuring that academics play a role in teaching and
creating understanding of the history and work of the black Diaspora.
It was also noted that these issues give new revitalisation to the
need for reparation particularly during the current UN Decade for
People of African Descent (2015-2024).

The
recorded broadcast of the Discussion Forum: ‘Race,
Class and COVID-19’ will
air on UWItv’s cable channel on Flow EVO on Saturday, May 9, and
Sunday, May 10, at 9:00 p.m. EC time.

END