Black women in England continue to face poorer results in the care of motherhood due to systemic racism, as well as the gaps in leadership and data collection, according to a group of parliamentarians.
Throughout the United Kingdom, black women have more than double probabilities to die during childbirth compared to white women, while babies born to black mothers face a greater risk of fetal death.
A report from the Health and Social Care Committee declared that these bad results come from systemic failures in responsibility and leadership, with concerns raised by black women often “not taken seriously” due to biases, stereotypes and racist assumptions.
“Safe maternal care for black women depends on a workforce that listens, understands and respects their needs,” said Paulette Hamilton, Labor deputy of Birmingham Erdington and interim president of the committee. “Leadership must be effective, but it must also be responsible. This report shows that this is not currently the case.”
He added that the next government investigation into the motherhood care of the NHS must be a “turning point” for black women.
“Structural racism incorporated in maternity services repeatedly fails black women. Recognizing this and approaching racial disparities in maternal results must be one of the central objectives of the investigation,” he said.
The committee said that despite these disparities, training in cultural competence is not mandatory for NHS personnel in motherhood care.
They asked the Government, the Royal College of Midwives and the Nursing and ParterÃa Council for this training to be mandatory and molded by the experiences of black women.
The report also highlighted the inadequate collection of data as a factor behind ethnic disparities, saying that many NHS trusts do not constantly record ethnicity data.
This lack of data has left the “blind to its failures”, said the committee, urging the Government to accelerate the creation of a promised maternal morbidity indicator.
The report follows the findings of the Five X More defense group, which said that almost half of pregnant black women expressed concerns during childbirth, and half of those who said their concerns were not addressed.
Tinuke Awe, co -founder of five x more, welcomed the report and said there is an “urgent need to address systemic failures in motherhood care” for black women.
Awe said: “For too long, black women have been ignored in maternity care, and recommendations in this report emphasize that the change is late. We believe that now is time to act. Arrange it for black women, fix it for all women.”
Clare Livingstone, Chief of Policy and Practice at the Royal College of Midwives, said that the greatest risk that black women face during pregnancy and childbirth was a “misfortune.”
“The recommendations in this report must be urgently acted and all in maternity services must work together to address these shocking disparities,” he said. “It should not be the case that these inequalities exist in England today.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Racism in any way is completely unacceptable and we are determined to reduce the shocking disparities that this report addresses.
“We are already taking measures to improve maternity attention, including the launch of a program against discrimination, train thousands of midwives and introduce new standards to address the main causes of maternal mortality.”
(The Guardian)
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