Maternal health: “white” medical curriculum needs overhaul to tackle racial inequalities, campaigners say

Tackling the large racial inequalities seen in maternal health will require changes to the education and training that healthcare workers receive so that they reflect the diversity of patients, health leaders and campaigners have said.

Speaking at the NHS Race and Health Observatory conference at BMA House on 7 July, Tinuke Awe, co-founder of Five X More—a campaigning group aimed at tackling the inequalities in maternal health faced by black women and birthing people1—said hiring more black midwives and doctors and increasing representation at all levels would not solve the problem, unless their education was also improved.

“We have to remember that the medical curriculum is essentially white. It doesn’t account for a lot of conditions and the way things present in black skin. …