Challenging racism is a public health responsibility

Sign: Health workers support the demands of Black Lives Matter Toronto

"The City of Toronto is failing to protect the health, wellbeing, and safety of Black and Indigenous communities," reads a Health Providers Against Poverty open letter addressed to Toronto City Council. "Black and Indigenous communities experience deeply unjust levels of police violence, compounded by disproportionate rates of poverty."

The open letter reiterates the demands of the Black Lives Matter Toronto movement to defund, demilitarize, and dismantle the Toronto Police Service.

The deadline to sign is tomorrow, Wednesday, June 24 at 9pm. Sign onto the open letter today.

"As healthcare providers, we acknowledge with deep shame our own ongoing complicity in upholding systems that put the lives of Black, Indigenous, and marginalized communities at risk," states the HPAP open letter.

Police violence and systemic racism are public health issues that cannot be ignored. As health workers, we witness the direct impact of structural inequality on the lives of our patients and we reiterate the importance of this unprecedented moment by showing our support for ongoing protests against Anti-Black racism.

Unfortunately, some public health responses have failed to comprehend the urgency of the threat of racism to Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities.

"What happens when science and instinct and experience leads you in one direction and the people lead you in another?” wrote one Toronto Star contributor, who warned that the protests are part of a trend of people "simply ceasing to do what the government asks." 

We strongly disagree that science, instinct, and experience are not on the side of protesters against systemic-racism, who are challenging the disproportionate ways that ill health and police violence lethally impact certain communities.

We also reiterate the statement drafted by U.S. infectious disease specialists, which argues that an anti-racist public health approach would acknowledge the vital importance of protests against systemic racism, while supporting and respecting stay-at-home orders in other scenarios. 

In other words, as health workers we must differentiate between the public health importance of protests against systemic racism - and other public gatherings.

As the statement signed by over 1200 U.S. public health workers reads, "protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported."

A Third Migrant Worker has Died

A third migrant farm worker, Juan López Chaparro, has died of a COVID-19 outbreak on Ontario farms. Survived by his wife and four children, Juan's tragic death was avoidable. 

As we explained last week, without permanent residency status, migrant workers face regular abuse, wage theft, and dangerous housing and working conditions that have led to the COVID-19 outbreak. Migrant workers must have status to be able to assert their labour rights and to protect their health and the health of all. 

Please take a moment to call Prime Minister Trudeau and demand #StatusForAll as a fundamental health issue.

"Without full immigration status," write members of the Migrant Rights Network, "we are denied healthcare, decent work, and support in times of crisis."