October 13, 2021 • 22 mins
The pandemic has exposed glaring inequalities in the healthcare industry. From access to medicine and providers to a lack of trust between doctors and patients, COVID revealed that systemic racism has a dramatic impact on the health and well-being of minority communities. What can be done to fix this? Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare, joined us to share her experiences and insights.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the Recount. I'm Kimberly Gavant filling in for Rena
nine In and you're listening to the Recount Daily Pod.
Today is Wednesday, October. It has created a lack of
trust that healthcare system has their best interests at heart,
and trust is foundational and healthcare. That was Dr Elaine Bachelor,
(00:30):
CEO of MLK Community Healthcare, talking about medical racism and
the impact it has on the health and well being
of minority communities. Rena nin In digs into that with
Dr Bachelor a little later on, but first your morning Headlines.
We begin in Washington, d C. Where the Biden administration
(00:51):
ordered a halt to all large scale immigration arrests at
job sites. The administration is also working on a new
enforcement strategy to more of actively target employers who pay
substandard wages and engage in exploitative labor practices. Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Majorcas gave immigration officials sixty days to devise
(01:12):
proposals to better protect workers who report their bosses from deportation.
The goal is to reduce demand for illegal labor while
making it easier for workers to step forward and report
unfair labor practices. Next to the Food and Drug Administration.
For the first time ever, the f d A has
(01:32):
authorized an e cigarette for sale in the US, saying
the Woozy cigarette could help adult smokers quit or significantly
reduce their cigarette consumption. The only three products authorized we're
all tobacco flavored. Their manufacturer, R. J. Reynolds, is a
nearly one hundred and fifty year old company behind many
iconic and deadly cigarette brands, including Camel, Newport, and pal Mall.
(01:56):
The decision comes during a contentious time for the f
d A, as calls to scrutinize and regulate the vaping
industry continue to build. Another vaping manufacturing company, puff Bar,
recently modified its recipe to use synthetic nicotine, avoiding FDA
regulation altogether. We end with the Department of Labor, which
(02:18):
just released an eye popping report showing that four point
three million people quit their jobs in August. That's just
under three percent of the workforce. The industries affected most
were hospitality and retail. The drop was driven primarily by
ample job opportunities, but inconvenient hours and low compensation were
also factors. According to the report, there were ten point
(02:40):
four million job openings at the end of August, a
stat that gives significant leverage to the worker looking for
a better gig. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
workers are quitting at or near the highest levels on
records since it first started measuring it in two thousand one,
and now to our Daily deep dive, the pandemic has
(03:01):
exposed glaring inequalities throughout American society that weren't really visible
outside of the communities experiencing them. That includes the health
care industry. Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare
pendant a d in the Atlantic September issue titled I'm
a Black Doctor. My mom still won't get vaccinated. It
(03:24):
was only in the middle of our interview that we
found out her mother had recently passed. Dr Bachelor, thanks
for joining us on the Recount Daily pod. Thank you.
Why do you think it is that you're nine year
old mother won't get vaccinated? My mother, like many other
African Americans and people of color in this country, has
had experience with and observations of both personal and structural
(03:49):
racism and healthcare and in other areas of life in
this country, and she's aware, like many African Americans are
aware that our communities don't have access to the same
resources and opportunities for health that other communities have. It
has created a lack of trust that the health care
(04:11):
system has their best interests at heart, and trust is
foundational and health care. If you don't trust your providers,
you're not likely to rely on their advice or follow
through on their recommendations. And with my mother, I saw
this playing out in real time with her reluctance to
(04:31):
get a COVID vaccine. And you go on in the article,
So your mother is college educated, she married a mathematician,
raised three kids in a neighborhood chosen for its good schools.
Is she vaccinated now? Has she changed her mind? Well,
you know, the story of my mother and the health
care system didn't end with the story that I wrote
for The Atlantic. Unfortunately, my mother was sick recently and
(04:54):
was hospitalized again and recently passed. I'm so sorry. I
had no idea thank you while she was in the hospital, though,
I was able to get her vaccinated, but unfortunately it
was too late to benefit her. That must be so
hard you are a doctor seeing this working in the
(05:15):
medical profession, and the frustration that must come understanding that
your mother refused to get vaccinated. Yes, I was very
frustrated by it, but I also understood it. And when
the vaccines first came out and we're being promoted, my
mother kind of summed up her hesitancy and her distrust
(05:35):
and she said to me, um, you know, we aren't fools.
We know they're not going to give us the same
vaccine they're giving themselves. And that was really emblematic of
her distrust and of the distrust of many in the
African American community. You know, we can see that our
health care is not the same as health care and
(05:58):
other communities. In the commune city that my hospital serves,
it's a low income, black and brown community. Most of
the residents are insured through Medicaid, and Medicaid pays pennies
on the dollar for the same health care services that
Medicare and commercial insurance are paying so much more for.
(06:19):
As an example, let's say an average emergency room visit
would pay two thousand dollars from commercial insurance, six d
and fifty dollars from Medicare, and a hundred fifty dollars
from Medicaid. So when you have these kind of large,
glaring disparities and funding. It leads to large disparities and access, quality,
(06:41):
and outcomes, and people who live in our communities are
quite aware of this. Is this inequality of healthcare reversible?
It absolutely is reversible. I think that the first thing
we have to do is acknowledge that it exists, and
then we have to have the will to change it.
We have to believe that all lives should be valued
(07:04):
and that every community deserves access to quality healthcare. And
then we have to invest in health care services in
our underserved communities. We need to be willing to pay
for prevention, disease management, and access to providers in underserved
communities of color. We need to diversify the healthcare workforce.
(07:29):
We know that when we go to seek healthcare that
there aren't many providers who look like us. We need
to change that. All of these are things that are
changeable with the right policies and the right awareness and determination.
You say they aren't people that look a lot like you.
The statistic really said so much to me. Black male
medical students accounted for three point one percent of all
(07:52):
medical students. This was back in Today that number has
dropped to two point nine percent. This was in two
thousand nineteen. Why do you think it is that we
don't see enough black doctors in America. I think that
we as a society have underinvested in education for low
income communities, and we continue to under invest in that education.
(08:17):
Going to medical school is, you know, the end of
a long educational journey, but it's also an expensive journey,
and students who don't have resources come out of medical
school with with huge amounts of debt. So I think
we need to have adequate funding for students of color
to study medicine, and then we have to make it
(08:38):
possible for them to practice in communities of color. If
we under fund health care in low income communities, we
won't solve the problem by producing more doctors because they
won't be able to establish practices. So we need to
do both of those things. We've got to take a
quick break and we'll be read back with Dr Elaine Bachelor,
(08:58):
CEO of MLK Community Healthcare on The Recount Daily Pod
book a Back to the Recount Daily Pod of podcasts
from the Recount and High Heart Radio. We're here with
Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare. We're talking
about medical racism. I think when you have constantly had
(09:19):
good access to health care, it's hard to understand what
some black and brown communities are going through. How this
concept of medical racism. How do you explain this to them?
It is hard to understand what goes on in other communities.
And you know, I tried to explain it through a
combination of stories about real people and the kind of
(09:40):
data that we've been discussing today. So one of the
data points that I share with people is the fact
that diabetic amputations and wounds are the number one surgical
procedure that we conducted our hospital. So you stop and
think about that for a minute. Diabetic amputations are entirely preventable.
The fact that we see so many people in our
(10:02):
hospital that need to have their limbs amputated is a
reflection of the lack of care in our community. Our
community lacks twelve doctors in comparison with other communities. The
average community has ten times as many doctors as South
l A. The result is chronic conditions like diabetes that
(10:23):
are poorly managed and that are in stage. Do you
think there is a link between black vaccine hesitancy and
how people are treated within the health care system. Absolutely.
We all have experiences within the health care system ourselves,
and even as a doctor, I have the same kinds
(10:45):
of experiences that other people of color have. Even while
my mother was in the hospital being treated, the doctors
that were caring for her were treating me with disrespect
and dismissing my concerns and my input. I'm a doctor
and I am observing things, and I'm sharing my observations
(11:05):
and my concerns with her doctors, and they are flat
out dismissing me and not listening to me. How did
you deal with that? That must be traumatic. Your mother
is in the hospital. You are a doctor, trained medical professional,
but they don't take you seriously. Yes, one small example.
I was visiting my mother daily, and so I was
(11:26):
observing what was happening with her, and she was being
given intravenous fluids, and I noticed that her hands were
getting puffy, and I said to her doctor, I think
she's getting too many fluids. I don't think he followed
through or took me seriously, because the next day he
called me and said, we gave your mother too many
fluids and now she's having difficulty breathing. Wow, would you
(11:47):
say to that that's very disheartening. And that's just one example,
and it really caused me to struggle with trusting her
doctors and trusting that what they were telling me was
in her best interest. It just made it so much
harder to collaborate to to do what was right for her.
(12:08):
We've got a take a quick break and we'll be
right back with Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community
Healthcare on the Recount Daily Pod Blocome back to the
Recount Daily Pod of podcast from the Recount and Highart Radio.
We're here with Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare.
We're talking about medical racism. A lot of people listening
(12:31):
might not be familiar with African American history and the
distrust in the medical community. Can you give us a
little sense of what kind of started this with the
Tuskegee Study. A lot of people do reference the Tuskegee
Study when they're trying to understand the root causes of
distrust in the African American community. It was an experiment
(12:52):
that was conducted by the Public Health Agency, started in
the Fort East, didn't end until the nineteen seventies, where
a group of African American men who had symphilis were
deliberately not treated without their knowledge so that they could
study the course of the disease. And when people found
(13:14):
out about that experiment, they were horrified. And people do
still remember Tuskegee and still do bring it up as
evidence that the health care system does not value black
lives and that it can't be trusted. But as I said,
our personal experience is evidence for us every day of
(13:36):
the lack of investment and health care in underserved communities.
Medical malpactors apparently begins in the womb. I was fascinated
to learn this. That study from George Mason University found
that black infants are three times more likely to die
than white babies who were cared for by white doctors.
Why do you think, Dr Bachelor that is and what
(13:58):
might be happening that's different for black babies if they
were treated by a black doctor. I must say that
I was shocked when I heard the result of that study,
And as a doctor, I was not predisposed to believe
that people within our profession would discriminate to such an extent.
(14:19):
But I have to say that my experiences as a patient,
my experience advocating for my mother as a patient have
made me realize that there are differences and how we're
treated within a health care setting, in addition to the
structural differences that result in communities of color not having
(14:40):
access to the same quality of healthcare services that other
communities have. We talk a lot about quote unquote implicit
bias um that seems like a less charged way of
saying that we're not being treated the same. So I
don't think we have had an opportunity to dig deeper
in to the study about the babies, but it's consistent
(15:04):
with the experience that many of us have within the
health care system, you know, Tennis phenomenon. Serena Williams shared
her story of nearly losing her life during childbirth a
couple of years ago, and it's not just her. According
to the CDC, black women in the US are over
three times more likely to die from pregnancy or from
childbirth related causes than white women. Can you break down
(15:25):
what's going on here? I don't think we completely understand
what's going on. I mean, one thing that we do
know is that, you know, again, women of color don't
have access to the same kinds of services, health care
services that other people have. And as an example, we
have labor and delivery services at our hospital. We have
women walking into our emergency room in labor who have
(15:49):
never had prenatal care because there is a profound shortage
of obstetricians in our community. We actually had a woman
who came into our hospital and to livered twins and
she had no idea that she was carrying twins. So
we know that there are these structural causes that are
linked to lack of access to health care. But I
(16:12):
think we're just now starting to do more study of
the bias that's also built into our health care system,
you know, the personal bias. What do you think it
will take for people of color to feel safe and
trust their medical professionals. We need to see that all
communities have access to quality health care. I think we
(16:36):
need to bring the Medicaid program and the payments that
are made to providers through the Medicaid program at least
to the same level as Medicare. We need to diversify
the health care workforce so that people of color have
options and can choose to have a provider who looks
like them if that's what they're most comfortable with, and
(16:58):
we need to see an elimination of the kind of
health disparities that we've been talking about today. I want
to go back to COVID. What do you think could
change the game, particularly in the black community, to get
more people vaccinated. So I think that the work that
our health care system has been doing is a good
example of what can happen when you have high quality
(17:21):
medical system with a diverse group of providers who have
the resources to go into the community, educate and inform
members of the community, and make vaccines easily available. Our
system has given approximately thirty five thousand doses of COVID
(17:41):
vaccines to people in our community and in our hospital,
and we've been doing it at places that people feel comfortable.
So we go to churches, schools, senior centers, grocery store,
parking lots, housing projects, and we have doctors and available
to talk to people about their fears and their concerns,
(18:04):
and you know, we make it easy for them. They
don't have to sign up on a computer system. They
can walk up and get a vaccine. So it's a
combination I think of people that are trusted in the community,
education and information and making it accessible and convenient. I
also think that as a society, we are going to
have both carrots and sticks to encourage as many people
(18:28):
as possible to get vaccinated. So I strongly believe in
mandates and in incentives. We had a mandate for healthcare
workers and our hospital to get vaccinated before the state
came out with its mandate, and I feel very strongly that,
you know, if we're working in healthcare, we have responsibility
to protect our patients, to protect our community, and to
(18:49):
model the right behavior. What would you say to people
who might not understand, really care about medical racism. Well,
I say that I hope that they have of learned
differently as a result of what we've seen happening with
the pandemic. I think the pandemic has given us a
perfect example of how connected we all are to each other,
(19:12):
and that we can't successfully isolate ourselves from the impact
that having poor health has on others in our community.
We all have interactions with our essential workers. These are
the people that live in my community. These are the
people of color who are working in your grocery store,
who are cooking your food, who are cleaning up after you,
(19:34):
who are caring for your children, and you continue to
have interaction with them. If their health isn't good, and
if they're susceptible to a pandemic, then we're all susceptible.
I think we've all seen over the past year and
a half the huge impact that this has had on
our economy are the education of our children, our health,
(19:55):
our mental health. We're all connected, and we need to
ensued that every person in our society is healthy and
has opportunities to access the healthcare they need. We're all
in this together, absolutely right. We are all connected. Dr
Lane Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare, thanks for joining us,
(20:19):
Thank you my pleasure, and now to the look ahead.
Here's what else we're watching today. President Joe Biden will
host a meeting on supply chains as global disruptions continue
to tamp down growth forecasts and also threatened the holiday
shopping season. Joining in the talks will be the leadership
of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as
(20:40):
well as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The administration
will also hold a round table with some impacted companies,
including Walmart, Ups and Home Depot. Biden will deliver remarks
after the meeting. UK Chancellor Rishi Sunach will host the
G seven Finance Ministers meeting in Washington, d C. A
draft document for the meeting revealed that the panel will
(21:03):
call for transparency and privacy protection as part of a
common set of guiding principles for Central Bank Digital Currencies
or c B DCS. China is by far the furthest
country along in creating a digital wand to Other high
profile annual finance meetings will also be taking place this
week in d C, including the World Bank Group and
(21:24):
the International Monetary Fund. Space the Final Frontier actor William Shatner,
yes Captain Kirk of the U. S. S Enterprise himself,
will make history today by being the oldest person ever
to travel into space at nine d Shatner will be
accompanied by three other passengers on the Blue Origin Rocket,
(21:44):
the same company that launched Jeff Bezos into space in July.
Along with the passengers will be thousands of postcards written
by children across the country. Once they touch back on Earth,
each postcard will be marked with a stamp saying flown
to Space before being sent back to their owners. Have
a great rest of your day. This is the Recount
(22:09):
Daily Pod, a podcast from The Recount and I Heart Radio.
Thank you to Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare,
for being on the show. If you liked this episode,
please subscribe to The Recount Daily pod and leave a
rating on the Apple podcast app. Filling in for Rena
nine in, I'm Kimberly Givant.
From the Recount. I'm Kimberly Gavant filling in for Rena
nine In and you're listening to the Recount Daily Pod.
Today is Wednesday, October. It has created a lack of
trust that healthcare system has their best interests at heart,
and trust is foundational and healthcare. That was Dr Elaine Bachelor,
(00:30):
CEO of MLK Community Healthcare, talking about medical racism and
the impact it has on the health and well being
of minority communities. Rena nin In digs into that with
Dr Bachelor a little later on, but first your morning Headlines.
We begin in Washington, d C. Where the Biden administration
(00:51):
ordered a halt to all large scale immigration arrests at
job sites. The administration is also working on a new
enforcement strategy to more of actively target employers who pay
substandard wages and engage in exploitative labor practices. Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Majorcas gave immigration officials sixty days to devise
(01:12):
proposals to better protect workers who report their bosses from deportation.
The goal is to reduce demand for illegal labor while
making it easier for workers to step forward and report
unfair labor practices. Next to the Food and Drug Administration.
For the first time ever, the f d A has
(01:32):
authorized an e cigarette for sale in the US, saying
the Woozy cigarette could help adult smokers quit or significantly
reduce their cigarette consumption. The only three products authorized we're
all tobacco flavored. Their manufacturer, R. J. Reynolds, is a
nearly one hundred and fifty year old company behind many
iconic and deadly cigarette brands, including Camel, Newport, and pal Mall.
(01:56):
The decision comes during a contentious time for the f
d A, as calls to scrutinize and regulate the vaping
industry continue to build. Another vaping manufacturing company, puff Bar,
recently modified its recipe to use synthetic nicotine, avoiding FDA
regulation altogether. We end with the Department of Labor, which
(02:18):
just released an eye popping report showing that four point
three million people quit their jobs in August. That's just
under three percent of the workforce. The industries affected most
were hospitality and retail. The drop was driven primarily by
ample job opportunities, but inconvenient hours and low compensation were
also factors. According to the report, there were ten point
(02:40):
four million job openings at the end of August, a
stat that gives significant leverage to the worker looking for
a better gig. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
workers are quitting at or near the highest levels on
records since it first started measuring it in two thousand one,
and now to our Daily deep dive, the pandemic has
(03:01):
exposed glaring inequalities throughout American society that weren't really visible
outside of the communities experiencing them. That includes the health
care industry. Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare
pendant a d in the Atlantic September issue titled I'm
a Black Doctor. My mom still won't get vaccinated. It
(03:24):
was only in the middle of our interview that we
found out her mother had recently passed. Dr Bachelor, thanks
for joining us on the Recount Daily pod. Thank you.
Why do you think it is that you're nine year
old mother won't get vaccinated? My mother, like many other
African Americans and people of color in this country, has
had experience with and observations of both personal and structural
(03:49):
racism and healthcare and in other areas of life in
this country, and she's aware, like many African Americans are
aware that our communities don't have access to the same
resources and opportunities for health that other communities have. It
has created a lack of trust that the health care
(04:11):
system has their best interests at heart, and trust is
foundational and health care. If you don't trust your providers,
you're not likely to rely on their advice or follow
through on their recommendations. And with my mother, I saw
this playing out in real time with her reluctance to
(04:31):
get a COVID vaccine. And you go on in the article,
So your mother is college educated, she married a mathematician,
raised three kids in a neighborhood chosen for its good schools.
Is she vaccinated now? Has she changed her mind? Well,
you know, the story of my mother and the health
care system didn't end with the story that I wrote
for The Atlantic. Unfortunately, my mother was sick recently and
(04:54):
was hospitalized again and recently passed. I'm so sorry. I
had no idea thank you while she was in the hospital, though,
I was able to get her vaccinated, but unfortunately it
was too late to benefit her. That must be so
hard you are a doctor seeing this working in the
(05:15):
medical profession, and the frustration that must come understanding that
your mother refused to get vaccinated. Yes, I was very
frustrated by it, but I also understood it. And when
the vaccines first came out and we're being promoted, my
mother kind of summed up her hesitancy and her distrust
(05:35):
and she said to me, um, you know, we aren't fools.
We know they're not going to give us the same
vaccine they're giving themselves. And that was really emblematic of
her distrust and of the distrust of many in the
African American community. You know, we can see that our
health care is not the same as health care and
(05:58):
other communities. In the commune city that my hospital serves,
it's a low income, black and brown community. Most of
the residents are insured through Medicaid, and Medicaid pays pennies
on the dollar for the same health care services that
Medicare and commercial insurance are paying so much more for.
(06:19):
As an example, let's say an average emergency room visit
would pay two thousand dollars from commercial insurance, six d
and fifty dollars from Medicare, and a hundred fifty dollars
from Medicaid. So when you have these kind of large,
glaring disparities and funding. It leads to large disparities and access, quality,
(06:41):
and outcomes, and people who live in our communities are
quite aware of this. Is this inequality of healthcare reversible?
It absolutely is reversible. I think that the first thing
we have to do is acknowledge that it exists, and
then we have to have the will to change it.
We have to believe that all lives should be valued
(07:04):
and that every community deserves access to quality healthcare. And
then we have to invest in health care services in
our underserved communities. We need to be willing to pay
for prevention, disease management, and access to providers in underserved
communities of color. We need to diversify the healthcare workforce.
(07:29):
We know that when we go to seek healthcare that
there aren't many providers who look like us. We need
to change that. All of these are things that are
changeable with the right policies and the right awareness and determination.
You say they aren't people that look a lot like you.
The statistic really said so much to me. Black male
medical students accounted for three point one percent of all
(07:52):
medical students. This was back in Today that number has
dropped to two point nine percent. This was in two
thousand nineteen. Why do you think it is that we
don't see enough black doctors in America. I think that
we as a society have underinvested in education for low
income communities, and we continue to under invest in that education.
(08:17):
Going to medical school is, you know, the end of
a long educational journey, but it's also an expensive journey,
and students who don't have resources come out of medical
school with with huge amounts of debt. So I think
we need to have adequate funding for students of color
to study medicine, and then we have to make it
(08:38):
possible for them to practice in communities of color. If
we under fund health care in low income communities, we
won't solve the problem by producing more doctors because they
won't be able to establish practices. So we need to
do both of those things. We've got to take a
quick break and we'll be read back with Dr Elaine Bachelor,
(08:58):
CEO of MLK Community Healthcare on The Recount Daily Pod
book a Back to the Recount Daily Pod of podcasts
from the Recount and High Heart Radio. We're here with
Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare. We're talking
about medical racism. I think when you have constantly had
(09:19):
good access to health care, it's hard to understand what
some black and brown communities are going through. How this
concept of medical racism. How do you explain this to them?
It is hard to understand what goes on in other communities.
And you know, I tried to explain it through a
combination of stories about real people and the kind of
(09:40):
data that we've been discussing today. So one of the
data points that I share with people is the fact
that diabetic amputations and wounds are the number one surgical
procedure that we conducted our hospital. So you stop and
think about that for a minute. Diabetic amputations are entirely preventable.
The fact that we see so many people in our
(10:02):
hospital that need to have their limbs amputated is a
reflection of the lack of care in our community. Our
community lacks twelve doctors in comparison with other communities. The
average community has ten times as many doctors as South
l A. The result is chronic conditions like diabetes that
(10:23):
are poorly managed and that are in stage. Do you
think there is a link between black vaccine hesitancy and
how people are treated within the health care system. Absolutely.
We all have experiences within the health care system ourselves,
and even as a doctor, I have the same kinds
(10:45):
of experiences that other people of color have. Even while
my mother was in the hospital being treated, the doctors
that were caring for her were treating me with disrespect
and dismissing my concerns and my input. I'm a doctor
and I am observing things, and I'm sharing my observations
(11:05):
and my concerns with her doctors, and they are flat
out dismissing me and not listening to me. How did
you deal with that? That must be traumatic. Your mother
is in the hospital. You are a doctor, trained medical professional,
but they don't take you seriously. Yes, one small example.
I was visiting my mother daily, and so I was
(11:26):
observing what was happening with her, and she was being
given intravenous fluids, and I noticed that her hands were
getting puffy, and I said to her doctor, I think
she's getting too many fluids. I don't think he followed
through or took me seriously, because the next day he
called me and said, we gave your mother too many
fluids and now she's having difficulty breathing. Wow, would you
(11:47):
say to that that's very disheartening. And that's just one example,
and it really caused me to struggle with trusting her
doctors and trusting that what they were telling me was
in her best interest. It just made it so much
harder to collaborate to to do what was right for her.
(12:08):
We've got a take a quick break and we'll be
right back with Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community
Healthcare on the Recount Daily Pod Blocome back to the
Recount Daily Pod of podcast from the Recount and Highart Radio.
We're here with Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare.
We're talking about medical racism. A lot of people listening
(12:31):
might not be familiar with African American history and the
distrust in the medical community. Can you give us a
little sense of what kind of started this with the
Tuskegee Study. A lot of people do reference the Tuskegee
Study when they're trying to understand the root causes of
distrust in the African American community. It was an experiment
(12:52):
that was conducted by the Public Health Agency, started in
the Fort East, didn't end until the nineteen seventies, where
a group of African American men who had symphilis were
deliberately not treated without their knowledge so that they could
study the course of the disease. And when people found
(13:14):
out about that experiment, they were horrified. And people do
still remember Tuskegee and still do bring it up as
evidence that the health care system does not value black
lives and that it can't be trusted. But as I said,
our personal experience is evidence for us every day of
(13:36):
the lack of investment and health care in underserved communities.
Medical malpactors apparently begins in the womb. I was fascinated
to learn this. That study from George Mason University found
that black infants are three times more likely to die
than white babies who were cared for by white doctors.
Why do you think, Dr Bachelor that is and what
(13:58):
might be happening that's different for black babies if they
were treated by a black doctor. I must say that
I was shocked when I heard the result of that study,
And as a doctor, I was not predisposed to believe
that people within our profession would discriminate to such an extent.
(14:19):
But I have to say that my experiences as a patient,
my experience advocating for my mother as a patient have
made me realize that there are differences and how we're
treated within a health care setting, in addition to the
structural differences that result in communities of color not having
(14:40):
access to the same quality of healthcare services that other
communities have. We talk a lot about quote unquote implicit
bias um that seems like a less charged way of
saying that we're not being treated the same. So I
don't think we have had an opportunity to dig deeper
in to the study about the babies, but it's consistent
(15:04):
with the experience that many of us have within the
health care system, you know, Tennis phenomenon. Serena Williams shared
her story of nearly losing her life during childbirth a
couple of years ago, and it's not just her. According
to the CDC, black women in the US are over
three times more likely to die from pregnancy or from
childbirth related causes than white women. Can you break down
(15:25):
what's going on here? I don't think we completely understand
what's going on. I mean, one thing that we do
know is that, you know, again, women of color don't
have access to the same kinds of services, health care
services that other people have. And as an example, we
have labor and delivery services at our hospital. We have
women walking into our emergency room in labor who have
(15:49):
never had prenatal care because there is a profound shortage
of obstetricians in our community. We actually had a woman
who came into our hospital and to livered twins and
she had no idea that she was carrying twins. So
we know that there are these structural causes that are
linked to lack of access to health care. But I
(16:12):
think we're just now starting to do more study of
the bias that's also built into our health care system,
you know, the personal bias. What do you think it
will take for people of color to feel safe and
trust their medical professionals. We need to see that all
communities have access to quality health care. I think we
(16:36):
need to bring the Medicaid program and the payments that
are made to providers through the Medicaid program at least
to the same level as Medicare. We need to diversify
the health care workforce so that people of color have
options and can choose to have a provider who looks
like them if that's what they're most comfortable with, and
(16:58):
we need to see an elimination of the kind of
health disparities that we've been talking about today. I want
to go back to COVID. What do you think could
change the game, particularly in the black community, to get
more people vaccinated. So I think that the work that
our health care system has been doing is a good
example of what can happen when you have high quality
(17:21):
medical system with a diverse group of providers who have
the resources to go into the community, educate and inform
members of the community, and make vaccines easily available. Our
system has given approximately thirty five thousand doses of COVID
(17:41):
vaccines to people in our community and in our hospital,
and we've been doing it at places that people feel comfortable.
So we go to churches, schools, senior centers, grocery store,
parking lots, housing projects, and we have doctors and available
to talk to people about their fears and their concerns,
(18:04):
and you know, we make it easy for them. They
don't have to sign up on a computer system. They
can walk up and get a vaccine. So it's a
combination I think of people that are trusted in the community,
education and information and making it accessible and convenient. I
also think that as a society, we are going to
have both carrots and sticks to encourage as many people
(18:28):
as possible to get vaccinated. So I strongly believe in
mandates and in incentives. We had a mandate for healthcare
workers and our hospital to get vaccinated before the state
came out with its mandate, and I feel very strongly that,
you know, if we're working in healthcare, we have responsibility
to protect our patients, to protect our community, and to
(18:49):
model the right behavior. What would you say to people
who might not understand, really care about medical racism. Well,
I say that I hope that they have of learned
differently as a result of what we've seen happening with
the pandemic. I think the pandemic has given us a
perfect example of how connected we all are to each other,
(19:12):
and that we can't successfully isolate ourselves from the impact
that having poor health has on others in our community.
We all have interactions with our essential workers. These are
the people that live in my community. These are the
people of color who are working in your grocery store,
who are cooking your food, who are cleaning up after you,
(19:34):
who are caring for your children, and you continue to
have interaction with them. If their health isn't good, and
if they're susceptible to a pandemic, then we're all susceptible.
I think we've all seen over the past year and
a half the huge impact that this has had on
our economy are the education of our children, our health,
(19:55):
our mental health. We're all connected, and we need to
ensued that every person in our society is healthy and
has opportunities to access the healthcare they need. We're all
in this together, absolutely right. We are all connected. Dr
Lane Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare, thanks for joining us,
(20:19):
Thank you my pleasure, and now to the look ahead.
Here's what else we're watching today. President Joe Biden will
host a meeting on supply chains as global disruptions continue
to tamp down growth forecasts and also threatened the holiday
shopping season. Joining in the talks will be the leadership
of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as
(20:40):
well as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The administration
will also hold a round table with some impacted companies,
including Walmart, Ups and Home Depot. Biden will deliver remarks
after the meeting. UK Chancellor Rishi Sunach will host the
G seven Finance Ministers meeting in Washington, d C. A
draft document for the meeting revealed that the panel will
(21:03):
call for transparency and privacy protection as part of a
common set of guiding principles for Central Bank Digital Currencies
or c B DCS. China is by far the furthest
country along in creating a digital wand to Other high
profile annual finance meetings will also be taking place this
week in d C, including the World Bank Group and
(21:24):
the International Monetary Fund. Space the Final Frontier actor William Shatner,
yes Captain Kirk of the U. S. S Enterprise himself,
will make history today by being the oldest person ever
to travel into space at nine d Shatner will be
accompanied by three other passengers on the Blue Origin Rocket,
(21:44):
the same company that launched Jeff Bezos into space in July.
Along with the passengers will be thousands of postcards written
by children across the country. Once they touch back on Earth,
each postcard will be marked with a stamp saying flown
to Space before being sent back to their owners. Have
a great rest of your day. This is the Recount
(22:09):
Daily Pod, a podcast from The Recount and I Heart Radio.
Thank you to Dr Elaine Bachelor, CEO of MLK Community Healthcare,
for being on the show. If you liked this episode,
please subscribe to The Recount Daily pod and leave a
rating on the Apple podcast app. Filling in for Rena
nine in, I'm Kimberly Givant.
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