High-risk Black, Asian and minority ethnic doctors should move away from treating COVID-19 patients, the British Medical Association (BMA) says
The head of the BMA called for all high-risk health care workers from ethnic minority backgrounds to be redeployed away from treating COVID-19 patients.
It comes after NHS England wrote to all trusts in England, recommending they assess Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) workers as “at potentially greater risk” from coronavirus.
The letter states: “Emerging U.K. and international data suggest that people from BAME backgrounds are also being disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
“[Public Health England] PHE have been asked by the DHSC to investigate this. In advance of their report and guidance, on a precautionary basis we recommend employers should risk-assess staff at potentially greater risk and make appropriate arrangements accordingly.”
Head of the BMA Dr. Chaand Nagpaul told Newsweek that he welcomed the news of BAME health care workers being risk assessed but that there needed to be an “objective risk assessment tool” provided to NHS employers.
He said: “There has been little by way of explanation about how we assess risk.
“Such a tool to risk assess would have to take into account things like ethnicity, age, occupation, conditions, job role, how high exposure is, we need some sort of objective assessment.”
Dr Nagpaul said he supported calls for doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff deemed high risk to be deployed away from treating COVID-19 patients. This would not mean they should be away from the “frontline” of medicine, just away from the frontline of the fight against the novel coronavirus.
There were many other areas, he said, where the NHS needed doctors and nurses which have been neglected due to the pandemic, such as A&E departments and cancer treatments, to name a few examples.
He said: “The NHS is not providing adequate care for non-COVID-19 patients, their needs are not being met. High-risk doctors who are redeployed can help out there too.
“This is not about causing a shortage by redeploying. It’s about redeploying those most at risk in other settings.”
The discrepancy in the number of people of color affected by the virus has been felt across the world, with the U.S. recording high cases per capital of African American cases alongside Canada and South Africa.
“The effect of COVID-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups is still emerging; however, current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups,” The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said.
A CDC study of eight hospitals in Georgia found that more than 80% of COVID-19 patients were African-American.
Dr Uché Blackstock, CEO of U.S. healthcare advocacy group Advancing Health Equity, said that it was a concern but that similar measures to remove at-risk staff ethnic minority staff from COVID-19 patients was unlikely.
“I’ve never heard such a policy being suggested in the U.S.,” Blackstock tells Newsweek.
“To me, it makes sense to bring those who are high risk away from the frontline, but I couldn’t imagine a similar scenario in the U.S. because of concerns over a shortage of healthcare workers.”
“To combat the impact on racial minorities in the U.S., we need to make sure that those communities that are particularly impacted, we target them with testing and contact tracing.
“We need to make sure areas where there is a higher percentage of minorities, that they are properly resourced.”
Blackstock called for more guidance at a federal level and making sure that the nuanced messaging was getting through to communities from ethnic minority backgrounds.
In the U.K., Newsweek has asked the government if it will be acting on the suggestions from the British Medical Association.
