(Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)There is a video circulating the Internet about a woman whose sister was suffering from COVID-19, but doctors didn’t believe her.
In the video below, she shares how her sister went to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and was told she had bronchitis and not the coronavirus. Then, she went back again and was told she had pneumonia. Her sister went a third time and was told she had the flu. During all these visits, the hospital would not test her for the coronavirus. It wasn’t until her fourth visit that she was put on a ventilator and unconscious that they decided to test her. She indeed had COVID-19. Unfortunately, shortly after she was put on the ventilator, she died.
But, unfortunately, this is not uncommon.
According to Buzzfeed news, a group of doctors in Virginia are concerned that black communities and other underserved groups might be disproportionately missing out on getting tested for COVID-19. They are calling for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization to release information about whether black communities are being left behind as the shortage of coronavirus tests continues in the US.
“We know in the US that there are great discrepancies in not only the diagnosis but the treatment that African Americans and other minorities are afforded. So I want to make sure that in this pandemic, that black and brown people are treated in the same way and that these tests are made available in the same pattern as for white people,” said Dr. Ebony Hilton, an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Virginia.
The doctors say that the deep-seated racial inequities disproportionately affect our communities — like a lack of paid sick leave and adequate health insurance, income disparities, and access to medical facilities — can heighten the effects of a crisis like the coronavirus outbreak.
It even affects the nation’s “stay-at-home” mandate because the majority of black Americans don’t have jobs that allow them to work from home. So they are ultimately exposed to… the outdoor conditions and the virus even more.
The great danger in shortchanging testing among blacks, the most vulnerable group in the population to illness, is that the absence of testing could have disastrous health consequences for the general population. Disease and afflictions can’t be walled off among one group. There is too much interaction across population lines for that.
“We are deeply concerned that African-American communities are being hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and that racial bias may be impacting the access they receive to testing and healthcare,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Whatever reason they give, no reason, in our opinion, is good enough to deny any person the right to get tested if they are sick. Period.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)If you or someone you know needs to get tested, click here for a symptom checker and testing sites.
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