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Dr Anton Sabastianpillai the retired Sri Lankan doctor felt obliged to offer his services at a time of national crisis, a sign of dedication to his adopted country. He died of Covid-19 at the Kingston Hospital

Call it synchronicity, call it coincidence, call it simple happenstance, just call it what you will. But two recent stories that gelled tell of the key role that UK’s ethnic minorities play in battling the coronavirus pandemic and the sad news of the sacrifices they make for their adopted home.

Last Sunday’s column dealt with the impact of the coronavirus on the UK in the course of which I mentioned the death of Dr Anton Sabastianpillai, a Sri Lankan doctor who died of Covid-19 at the Kingston Hospital where he worked as a consultant geriatrician.

The British Medical Association (BMA) newsletter said that Dr Sebastianpillai had retired but felt obliged to offer his services at a time of national crisis, a sign of dedication to his adopted country.

The column itself was written on Thursday April 9, three days before its publication. The very next day and for several days thereafter the British media focused on the deaths of ethnic minority doctors who were in the frontline fighting the virus in the course of which Dr Sebastianpillai’s name was listed as a victim of the virus.

What was significant in these media reports was an observation made by Dr Chaand Nagpaul, president of the British Medical Association (BMA). He drew attention to the fact of the first 10 doctors to die of the Corona infection including Dr Sebastianpillai, were all from ethnic minorities with ancestry in Asia, Middle East and Africa.

They use the acronym BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) to describe the ancestral background of the medical and other health service personnel who make up the National Health Service (NHS) which is considered one of the best health systems in the world, though it has many problems such as severe funding cuts which have affected even pharmacists many of whom are from minority communities.

It is a truism that it is these ethnic minorities that keep Britain’s health system alive and kicking. This has been true for decades, especially since doctors from the former colonies in particular, found it easier to migrate to the UK and work here before immigration restrictions were clamped.

Despite the tightening of immigration rules, today the NHS is dependent on migrant doctors and their children who studied here and qualified as doctors. The BMA president painted a stark picture when he said that 44% of the NHS medical staff are from the BAME which is evidence enough to show how much the British health system is dependent on ethnic minorities.

Most of them are from South Asia — the majority of them of Indian origin some having come via Africa where many Indians had settled during colonial times.

Sri Lanka has a substantial number of medical professionals in the UK. But the problem — if that is what it is- is that nobody can put a figure on how many doctors live and work here and continue to contribute their knowledge and expertise to the NHS.

“Well, it could be 5,000 or 10,000. Nobody really knows”, Dr Thushara Rodrigo, President of the Sri Lanka Medical and Dental Association UK, told the Sunday Times, underlining that even a guestimate could be wide off the mark.

“This much I could say”, he continued. “In the hospital in which I work in Broomfield, Chelmsford there are 20 consultants who are Sri Lankan”. Dr Rodrigo who is a consultant pathologist says that in that department seven of the consultants are from ethnic minorities while only two are white.

This is so several other hospitals and GP practices which I know.

One of the problems in trying to track down numbers is that Sri Lankan medical professionals are not registered anywhere. The association that Dr Rodrigo heads has 300 or more members.

But that is minuscular compared to what many say represent the Sri Lankan medical fraternity. The fact that there are several associations of Sri Lankan doctors, including one based on ethnicity, while some doctors do not belong to any association lies is at the root of the dilemma.  It makes it impossible to quantify how many medical professionals of Sri Lankan origin there are to buttress the NHS which has fallen on hard times and whose future was in doubt an year or two ago.

One worrying factor is that the disproportionate number of BAME medical staff in the NHS makes them frontliners in this fight against the Coronavirus. Although some of them may not be particularly qualified in the expertise required in the current circumstances they become frontline doctors accompanying others into the intensive care units and wards with infected patients depending on staff needs and the place of work.

So Sri Lankan doctors — they could be anyone from anaesthetists, those working in A&E  or even ENT surgeons — find themselves in the frontline of the daily medical battle to overcome the pandemic in which Britain has recorded over 100,00 cases and around 14,000 deaths at the time of writing.

Furthermore, Dr Nagpaul points out that in terms of BAME population they make up 33% of patients in intensive care while the minorities represent about 15% of the UK population.

Equally worrying for ethnic minority medical staff including some Sri Lankan doctors, is the lack of sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). In the early days of the pandemic it seemed clear that the government was not ready to deal with an impending outbreak though warned beforehand.

Despite clear warnings from experts and scientists, British politicians like others of their breed in some other countries, ignored the advice and did not take early measures to mitigate the dangers in the arrogant belief that politicians know best.

Nor did they prepare for coronavirus, expecting perhaps an influenza epidemic in the past winter, and so the necessary protective equipment including effective masks, gowns, ventilators etc were not available in the quantities required.

As the situation deteriorated everybody became part of the frontline helping out to save the nation from the catastrophe. Even where ethnic minority doctors felt ill-equipped to serve in the frontlines, they still did go beyond their call of duty.

Dr Nagpaul offered one explanation why ethnic minority medical staff was reluctant to raise the issue of the lack of proper personal protective equipment that placed them in danger.

Among the contributory factors could be that BAME doctors felt less able to complain about inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) – a recurring complaint among healthcare workers during the crisis – thereby putting themselves in danger.

“BAME doctors often feel bullied and harassed at higher levels compared to their white counterparts,” Dr Nagpaul wrote. “They are twice as likely not to raise concerns because of fears of recrimination.”

The president of BMA has urged the government to investigate why ethnic minority doctors and people are disproportionately becoming victims of the virus. That is unlikely to happen any time in the near future, if it happens at all.

But now is the time for ethnic minority medical staff and health workers along with the rest to press their case for better facilities, more funding and equal treatment.

They have proved that without their presence as key frontliners the NHS would never have dealt with this epediomological catastrophe the way it did in the last months and will surely do so in similar situations in the future if politicians stop meddling with it.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London and joining Gemini News Service. Later he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism. )