healthcare
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Say Her Name: Dr. Susan Moore and Medical Apartheid
On December 20th, Michigan-based family medicine physician Dr. Susan Moore died due to complications from COVID-19. Less than two weeks before her death, Moore shared her experience with racism at the Indiana hospital where she was being treated, showing yet another example of anti-Blackness and medical apartheid. In the words of Moore: “You have to…
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Indiana University Health Responds to Black Doctor's Video of COVID Treatment: Nursing Team 'May Have Been Intimidated'
Dr. Susan Moore died days before Christmas at 52, after a protracted battle to get racially equitable treatment at Indiana University Health North Hospital (IU), according to videos she posted on social media about her experience. The head of that hospital system, Dennis Murphy, has since issued a statement in response to Dr. Moore’s video…
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Rep. Barbara Lee: To Mend African American Distrust in COVID-19 Vaccine, Let Black Communities Lead the Way
As the historic campaign to distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the country kicked off this week, many lawmakers, public health experts, and newsrooms across the country have paid special attention to Black Americans’ distrust in a coronavirus vaccine. That distrust has been well-documented, as have its origins: American medicine has a long history of dismissing Black…
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First COVID-19 Vaccine Administered in the U.S. Goes to a Black Nurse; Officials Hope It’s ‘the Beginning of the End’ of the Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has made 2020 one long year. Seriously, it feels like ages since media outlets first started reporting on the spread of the virus, and people in the U.S. and much of the world had no idea what impact it would have on our daily lives. Now, as we’re nearing the end of 2020—and…
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Black ER Doctor Says an Arizona Hospital Sidelined Him After He Tweeted About a Lack of Hospital Beds
Dr. Cleavon Gilman, an emergency-medicine physician who has been outspoken about the dire conditions in American hospitals due to the coronavirus pandemic, says he was barred from returning to work at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Arizona after tweeting about shortages in hospital beds last month. According to Gilman, the healthcare staffing company he works…
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Rate of Black Children Who Have Received Flu Shots Is Down 10 Percent From Last Year
While the number of people who have received flu shots this year has seen an overall increase, new data has shown that when it comes to Black children that number has actually gone down. According to NBC News, a report released on Wednesday has officials at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention somewhat alarmed.…
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Black Doctors Release Letter Encouraging Black Families to Take COVID-19 Vaccine When It’s Safe, Avoid Gatherings During the Holidays
Last week, when discussing my hopes and goals for the next year with my mom, the necessity of a vaccine obviously came up. “Uh, I’m not taking it at first, and neither are you,” she told me. “We’re going to let them take it and see what happens”— “them” obviously meaning white folks. This attitude…
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On Transgender Day of Remembrance, Activists Center the Grief, Joy and Humanity of the Black Trans Community
It remains one of the most striking demonstrations from a year defined by protest: tens of thousands of people dressed in white t-shirts, wearing white face masks and white head wraps, from all backgrounds, all marching the streets in defense of Black trans lives. The summer march in Brooklyn, N.Y. was one of the largest,…
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America Is Sick. This Shouldn't Surprise Us Anymore
On Thursday morning, as rates of coronavirus infection continued to soar around the country, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, tried to relay just how serious the state of the pandemic is in the United States. “Doctors Without Borders have come to the United States to do their work. They go to the hottest…
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NYC Pilot Program Will Have Medical Professionals Respond to Mental Health Calls Instead of NYPD
In recent years, we’ve seen countless tragedies result from the response by police officers to people suffering a mental health crisis. New York City is set to launch a pilot program next year that will see healthcare professionals responding to these cases instead of the New York Police Department. NBC New York reports that the…