Sickle Cell Patients Facing Racism In NHS, Report Finds

Sickle cell patients are grappling with racism in a healthcare system that is placing their lives at risk, a groundbreaking parliamentary report has highlighted.

- Nadine White

Sickle cell patients are grappling with racism in a healthcare system that is placing their lives at risk, a groundbreaking parliamentary report has highlighted. The revelations have prompted cross-party MPs to urge health secretary Sajid Javid and the NHS to take urgent action in addressing this problem.

These findings have been set out in the No One’s Listening report which was jointly published today by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia and the Sickle Cell Society, a national charity that supports and represents people affected by sickle cell blood disorders.

Sickle cell predominantly affects black people, and patients shared with the APPG inquiry accounts of being treated with disrespect, not being believed or listened to, and having their pain disregarded and not treated as a priority by healthcare professionals even in cases where urgent medical care was needed.

Some patients shared examples of particularly overt racism; one patient said he has “had to deal with doctors and nurses openly being racist towards me and others… I’ve been called the N-word to my face and much worse.”

“As sickle is mainly a black illness, they jump to the conclusion that we’re all ‘junkies’ and not in pain at all … If we were cancer patients it would be totally different, they have high doses of morphine, no questions asked and extra if they need it because they are mainly white people,” Diane Crawford, another patient, told the inquiry.