COVID-19 Highlighting Inequalities in Access to Healthcare in England: A Case Study of Ethnic Minority and Migrant Women
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COVID‑19 Highlighting Inequalities in Access to Healthcare in England: A Case Study of Ethnic Minority and Migrant Women Sabrina Germain1 · Adrienne Yong1 Accepted: 22 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Our commentary aims to show that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing barriers to healthcare in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. We expose how the pandemic has affected the allocation of healthcare resources leading to the prioritisation of COVID-19 patients and suspending the equal access to healthcare services approach. We argue that we must look beyond this disruption in provision by examining existing barriers to access that have been amplified by the pandemic in order to understand the poorer health outcomes for women in ethnic minority and migrant communities. The reflection focuses on racialised medical perceptions, gendered cultural norms including information barriers and stigma, and specific legal barriers. Keywords COVID-19 · Ethnic minority women · Migrant women · Access to healthcare · Inequality
Introduction As Naqvi and Russell’s recent Editorial (2020) in Feminist Legal Studies sharply highlights, it only took six months of a global pandemic to bring to light structural inequalities that have existed for decades. The focus on the higher mortality rate from the virus for men worldwide somewhat eclipses the widening inequalities of gender and race (Flood et al. 2020, 6). Research has shown that ethnic minority and
* Sabrina Germain [email protected] Adrienne Yong [email protected] 1
The City Law School, City, University of London, Northampton Square, Clerkenwell, London EC1V 0HB, UK
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migrant women1 are disproportionately affected by existing barriers to access to healthcare (Mirza and Sheridan 2003; Jayaweera 2018). These barriers have been generated and embedded by a system that overlooks the intersectional barriers raised by being an ethnic minority and/or a migrant2 woman (Mirza 1997). Our commentary aims to show that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these existing barriers in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. We expose how the pandemic has affected the allocation of healthcare resources in England, leading to the prioritisation of COVID-19 patients and suspending the equal access to healthcare services approach. We then explore the poorer health outcomes for women in ethnic minority and migrant communities that the disruption in provision cannot solely account for by looking at the underlying barriers to access that have been amplified by the pandemic. The reflection focuses on racialised medical perceptions, gendered cultural norms including information barriers and stigma, and specific legal barriers.
COVID‑19 Highlighting Unequal Access to Healthcare Services The COVID-19 pandemic marks an unprecedented event in healthcare policy. Since the inception of the NHS, the principle of equal access to healthcare services for all has been at the heart of the system, and for the pas
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