Mistrust of the NHS leading to black people refusing Covid jab, former MP says
A deep-rooted mistrust of the NHS is contributing to black people refusing to have the Covid jab, a former MP has said.
Eleanor Smith, the former Labour MP for Wolverhampton South West, said people in Afro-Caribbean communities were being "misinformed on a grand scale" about the vaccine.
Ms Smith, who worked in the NHS for 40 years, said she had recognised that "racism was in there" and that some black people did not feel the health service was "something that they can actually turn to".
She said stories were "going out in the community" that black people were experimented on in the past, and that they would be given different versions of the vaccine to others.
She warned that people were not being given the "informed information" they needed to decide whether to take the vaccine, and called on church leaders and other role models to "step up" and "tell people it's OK to be vaccinated".
A recent study found that 72 per cent of black people were unlikely to have the Covid jab, while Birmingham's director of public health, Dr Justin Varney, said in some of the worst affected parts of the city 50 per cent of people had declined the vaccine.
Ms Smith was speaking at an online meeting on tackling vaccine misinformation, chaired by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner.
She said: "The one thing I will say, about the mistrust of the NHS... for somebody that worked in the NHS for a long time and had recognised that racism was in there... that's where it starts.
"If the individuals who are working there come home, and they say those stories, and people themselves experience, here the reasons why nobody feels the NHS is something that they can actually turn to, which is wrong really.
"There is the historical thing as well, as regards to what happened in the past, how they felt that black people were experimented on.
Protect
"That's going out in the community as well... as reasons why [people are] not going to do it [the vaccine].
"We need to give them the clear understanding how this vaccine is going to work and how it's going to protect everybody.
"I've even heard some people say 'they will give the one group one vaccine and they'll probably give me a different one'.
"Again, that's interpretation.
"This is about taking the decision and saying 'we're here to protect you', we're here to give you the information that you require – and yes, you have to take that decision – but the decision is also about whether you protect yourself, your family and the community around you."
Ms Smith, who lost her seat to the Conservatives in 2019, called on "role models within the community" including church leaders to help tackle misinformation.
