Ana Delgado ,Opinion Contributor 17 hours ago
Businessinsider post – (https://www.businessinsider.com/white-supremacy-covid-19-pandemic-minorities-health-science-hospitals-racism-2021-1?utm_campaign=sf-bi-tipresents&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social)
My patient had just been told that she had a serious complication in her pregnancy. We needed to take action to prevent her from losing her pregnancy or giving birth prematurely. The words barely registered because, at the same time, she found out that she tested positive for COVID-19.
She was overwhelmed with stress at the idea that she would lose her job in food preparation. The complication that felt like the top priority to her care team barely registered — the COVID diagnosis suddenly put her basic survival and ability to provide for her family at risk.
Her story is not unusual among the low-income Black and Latinx patients I see at San Francisco General, our county’s safety net hospital, which is charged with caring for San Francisco’s uninsured, publicly insured, and otherwise marginalized communities. Many of these patients are either losing their jobs as the service industry collapses or putting themselves and their families at risk as essential workers. They’re at the nexus of violence and oppression from the state, whether through a cruel deportation machine or rampant police violence. And for Black people who identify as Latinx and/or immigrants the oppression is increased.
My patients want to be able to build their families and support them so they can thrive. The barrier in their way is the plague of white supremacy that has sickened this nation for hundreds of years and has manifested anew during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the poison root is the same, whatever grows from it is linked. Our communities shouldn’t be fighting over scraps while our government fails to meet this moment, handing down inadequate and racist responses.