Month: September 2020

Healthwatch Camden was invited to speak at the national launch of the report ‘Ageing in Place for Minority Ethnic Communities: The importance of social infrastructure’ in August 2020. As part of this programme, Healthwatch Camden explored the types of social infrastructure that people aged 50 and over from the Bangladeshi community access and to understand how organisations working with ethnic minority groups engaged with older members from their community. 

The guest blogger this month is Abdul Hai, Cabinet Member for Young People, Equalities, and Cohesion.

Whilst there will be difficult challenges ahead, we must ensure that the lasting impacts are not felt disproportionately by Camden’s ethnic minority communities. Covid-19 has exposed the deep structural inequalities in the UK.  We recognised that urgent action was required.  I worked with Juliet Billet, Director of Public Health for Camden and Islington, to establish a working group to implement a six-week programme to review the disproportionate impact.

Refugees and asylum seekers have been forced to face the COVID-19 crisis far away from families and friends, having to contend with housing issues, difficulties with asylum procedures, anxiety, cultural differences and language barriers. This blog highlights some of the findings from 12 refugee and asylum seekers who shared their experiences with us through the survey and through follow-up interviews. They told us that their most common concerns regarding COVID-19 were: a) a fear of contracting the virus; b) feeling worried about the future or the inability to make plans; and c) “life coming to a halt.” Other common issues with most interviewees were lack of social and community interaction, concerns of the health of loved ones, and experiencing boredom. In addition, the majority found understanding information and guidance from COVID-19 “difficult” or “very difficult.” This is in stark contrast to the responses from all respondents to our survey, only 18% of whom had difficulties understanding guidance.