At thursday night’s Board of Health meeting, the board moved to identify racism as a public health crisis. City council recently moved to ask the London Police Services Board, School Board and the Board of Health to respond to demands made by Black Lives Matter London.
“We’re in good company. The World Health Organization and many other public health organizations have identified this as a public health issue.” Said Doctor Chris Mackie the CEO of the Middlesex London Health Unit.
Doctor Mackie says the Health unit has two goals they wish to meet.
“First of all we want to make absolutely certain that we have our own house in order. That we are following best practices within the health unit. That we have the voices of black, indigenous and people of colour reflected in our work as much as possible.”
“Secondly we want to try and use this opportunity to build a community strategy.” Something he says would involve the other boards.
“So that we can actually do something that’s potentially beyond what any one agency can do.”
Doctor Mackie says that if they get support from City Council they could go above and beyond the demands that have been made so far. It will however require a lot of communication.
Doctor Mackie says the issue of black leadership is one thing he hopes to address.
“We certainly have people of colour on our staff but I think if were going to do good job of this we need to have connection with the leadership of the black community in London and beyond.”
“The reality is that I dont feel comfortable saying that I have the contacts to bring in the best leadership from that diverse community.” He went on to say that he will be looking for outside input on connections in order to diversify the Health Units network.
“I look around the room when we talk about the leadership of the Police Force, and the School Boards and the Health Unit and even the City. The room is looking pretty pale.”
Doctor Mackie expressed his concern that should the boards alone work towards change it might not be enough.
“I know that we will have to consult with lots of different components of those communities if we want to have an effective strategy but also leadership of developing that strategy. So it’s not the voices of black people interpreted through the filter of white people.”
The Board of Health intends to be both thoughtful and deliberate in the decisions they make in order to creat change. The board also intends to move forward sooner rather the later. The senior team plans on discussing the best way forward in their meeting on Tuesday.
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