Why are so many ethnic minorities dying in the UK and US?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In news reports and newspapers, pictures of British healthcare workers who have lost their lives to Covid-19 sit side by side.
And if you look at those faces one thing stands out clearly. Of the 119 cases of NHS deaths more than two thirds are black or an ethnic minority - yet they only make up 20% of the workforce. Figures from the National Health Service in England show a disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths are amongst these groups. And it’s not just in the UK.
In the United States on available data – it’s a similar story with African Americans accounting for many more deaths in a community that make up 13% of the population.
So what’s going on?
Kavita Puri speaks with: Dr Kamlesh Khunti, Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester Professor Kathy Rowan, Director of the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre Dr Consuelo Wilkins, Vice President for Health Equity at Vanderbilt University Medical Center Prof John Watkins, Professor Epidemiology, Cardiff University/Public Health Wales
(Ambulance workers transport patients to St Thomas' Hospital in Westminster, London, UK. Photo credit: Ollie Millington/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, |
| 0:03.1 | Kavita Puri. |
| 0:04.5 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses |
| 0:09.2 | and an answer. Adele |
| 0:15.0 | L. Tyre was born in northeast Sudan in 1956, in a railway town built by the British, |
| 0:22.0 | one of 12, he was bright and became a transplant surgeon. |
| 0:26.4 | Like so many doctors in the National Health Service, Adil came to Britain where he |
| 0:32.1 | practiced for decades and when coronavirus struck he volunteered to go back to the front line. |
| 0:41.0 | But he soon fell ill and two weeks later he was dead from the virus. |
| 0:47.4 | He was 64. |
| 0:52.3 | He was one of the first doctors to die in Britain. In news reports his picture sits |
| 0:58.1 | side by side with all the other NHS workers who've lost their lives. And if you look at those faces, one thing |
| 1:07.0 | stands out clearly. Of the 119 cases of NHS deaths, more than two-thirds are black or an ethnic minority, |
| 1:17.0 | yet they only make up 20% of the workforce. |
| 1:22.0 | Biggers from NHS England show a disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths in the country are amongst these groups, |
| 1:30.0 | and it's not just in the UK. |
| 1:33.0 | In the United States on available data, |
| 1:37.0 | African Americans account for 35% of deaths, |
| 1:40.0 | yet they make up 13% of the population. So what's going on? |
| 1:47.0 | This week on the inquiry we ask, why are so many ethnic minorities in the UK and US dying from COVID-19? |
| 1:57.0 | Part 1, Critical Data. |
| 2:06.0 | When I go on Thursday evening at 8 o'clock with my plastic spoon and my saucepan, I bang my drum for the NHS. |
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