National research project to probe racism in health care amid COVID-19 pandemic

A new research project will look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racialized communities as well as existing  biases in the health-care system.

The national project was launched by Roberta Timothy, an assistant professor with the University of Toronto's Institute for Pandemics.

Many members of the Black and Indigenous communities already avoid interacting with the health-care system, mostly due to experiences with racism and biases, she said.

That can have grave consequences for the well-being of those communities during a pandemic, Timothy said.

"People will seek help when it's an emergency and by then it's too late," she said. "Because of the bias, because of anti-Black racism, because of violence they experience, their health becomes more at risk."

Timothy says there's a need for more data to effectively understand the impact of COVID-19 on racialized communities.

The Ontario government refused to collect race-based data earlier in the pandemic but was forced to change course in June. Now it mandates the collection of data around race, income, household size and language when following up with people who've been infected with COVID-19.

Ontario health ministry plans to share findings

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the government is engaging with people from racialized communities and  other health equity experts regarding the data collection.

"We plan to share findings of this data collection, informed by this engagement," David Jensen said in an email. He said the ministry is concerned about the spread of the virus in "certain groups of people and in certain neighbourhoods," and would welcome additional insights and information about how COVID-19 is affecting racialized communities.

Early data compiled by Toronto Public Health showed that 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases occurred in racialized people. Black people represented 21 per cent of cases in Toronto, but only nine per cent of the city's population. 

"There is growing evidence in North America and beyond that racialized people and people living in lower-income  households are more likely to be affected by COVID-19," said Dr. Christine Navarro, associate medical officer of health for Toronto.

"While the exact reasons for this have yet to be fully understood, we believe it is related to both poverty and racism."

Timothy's project will collect more data about how Black people interact with the health-care system, but also about economic impacts, evictions, support networks and essential work being done by marginalized communities.

Rudayna Bahubeshi, a Toronto resident and post-graduate student in public policy, says she has first-hand experience with racism in the health-care system.

During a stint in a mood disorder ward when she was 18, Bahubeshi says a nurse mistook her for a 30-year-old patient — the only other Black person in the ward at the time — and tried to make her take the other person's medication.

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Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, says the language used by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization was “troubling” and suggests that there are different tiers of vaccines, which is not the case.

'We've decided that Black communities are not a priority'

Bahubeshi says she argued but was ignored, and believes her race was a factor in the way she was treated by staff. She says the nurse only realized the mistake when the other patient happened to walk by.

In another hospital visit during the pandemic, Bahubeshi says she was taken to a "COVID ward" because she had  a fever.

"The way she [the nurse] was engaging with me was very much that I was the problem," said Bahubeshi. "When I talked to a doctor afterwards they told me I was fully in the right and that was unacceptable." 

Bahubeshi says experiences like those erode her trust in the public health system and its ability to provide quality care for her. She says more data about the experience of Black people in health care will be a first step in the right direction.

"The fact that we don't have race-based data is a way we've decided that Black communities are not a priority," said Bahubeshi.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.