To our Wakefield Brunswick community,
On the evening of March 13, while we were distracted with the national emergency declaration of the coronavirus pandemic, Breonna Taylor lost her life in the safety of her home. She was 26 years old, a young aspiring nurse and first responder colleague. Breonna was about to embark on her nursing education in the Fall of 2020.
Wakefield Brunswick, Inc. acknowledges the presence of systemic racism in the United States and within the healthcare emergency management community where we serve. Like many of our healthcare colleagues and patients, Breonna suffered the impacts of systemic racism and in the end, it cost her life.
For over 400 years, racial relations in the United States have ebbed and flowed providing Black Americans some victories but never quite gaining a state of authentic equality within our institutions. Over the past decades, racial tensions have simmered due to the disparities and disproportionate deaths among the Black community and because of racism in the healthcare and justice systems, police violence, homicides, mass incarceration, post-disaster displacement, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our team is committed to addressing how racism affects healthcare and disaster disparities. For 12 years, we have worked in some capacity to address gender violence or racial disparities but…
It is not enough.
It is not enough to stand in solidarity with Black communities but stay silent about white supremacy within our professional community.
It is not enough to research and publish findings on disparities and violence upon Black bodies but not act on the findings.
It’s not enough to shake our head in silence when we witness acts of structural or physical violence.
It’s not enough to grit our teeth or smile professionally while working with institutions that perpetuate acts of structural or physical violence on Black bodies.
Therefore, in the spirit of public accountability, Wakefield Brunswick will take action to confront and dismantle white supremacy, structural, and physical violence within our professional communities and institutions. Here is our call to action:
Get Our House in Order
Each employee and partner will be provided a safe environment to reflect on our biases and how they affect our behaviors and practices within Wakefield Brunswick.
Initiate a WB Diversity and Inclusion Program which includes policies that foster non-violent communication, bias assessments, and a Diversity and Inclusion policy to be included in all contracts.
Foster deeper relationships with businesses, organizations, and communities of color to support their struggle as allies and successes as partners.
Establish recruiting practices to perform further background checks to screen persons with a history of aggression or violence.
Assess all WB service offerings to identify and mitigate risks to communities of color which may be impacted by the work we do with their local healthcare providers.
Confront and Address Healthcare and Emergency Management Disparities
Publicly address our position on racial inequalities and injustices as a resiliency risk within the communities we serve.
Ensure WB communications, methodologies, and contracts include our position on social inequities with our intentions to address them through our healthcare resiliency work.
Educate WB team members on the social determinants of health and the intersectionality within healthcare emergency management and disasters.
Integrate the Healthy People 2020 Social Determinants of Health within WB’s Healthcare Risk and Resiliency methodologies, assessments, and Maturity Model Index.
Hold the US Congress accountable by expressing our support of H.R. 40 Bill. This legislation will assemble a commission to study the effects of slavery, institutional racism, and discrimination of Black Americans from 1619 to the present.
Hold our local elected officials, federal agencies, and emergency management accountable to improve communications with communities of color including non-English speaking communities in their region.
Assemble a Racial Inequities Task Force within the healthcare emergency management profession to study the disparities and inequities among communities of color. The RITF will create a baseline to measure how the healthcare emergency preparedness profession is addressing the social determinants of health and vulnerable populations.
Based on agreed upon baselines, publish a bi-annual benchmarking survey, the Racial Inequities in Healthcare and Emergency Management Program Benchmarking Survey.
Strategic Partnerships
Continue to support the Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals (AHEPP) including the adoption of professional standards which will include the social determinants of health, diversity, and inclusion.
Continue to humanitarian work of the Field Innovation Team (FIT) which empowers people with creative lifesaving disaster solutions.
Partner with the Institute of Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management to address inclusive resilience within the emergency management profession.
Partner with professional associations, healthcare organizations, non-profits, academia, governmental agencies, and other interested parties to continue the conversations regarding social inequities.
Justice for Breonna Taylor
Photo Source: Family of Breonna Taylor, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
After working a long day of pandemic response in her Louisville, KY hospital, where Breonna Taylor worked as an emergency room technician, she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, went to dinner then home for an early night in. Breonna was scheduled to work the first shift the following morning. They were awakened to pounding on the front door and three intruders entered their home. Walker reached for his licensed handgun and fired a shot into the leg of one of the men. The three men responded with more than 20 bullets, killing Breonna with eight of them. The three men were undercover police officers who obtained a search warrant with incorrect information and address.
No arrests have been made. Her family awaits answers from the Louisville Metro Police Department. The Black community demands justice for Breonna Taylor. So, do we.
In honor of our colleague Breonna Taylor, Wakefield Brunswick will:
Support and promote the work of Justice for Breonna.
Actively participate in #JusticeforBre Action Plan.
Donate to the Louisville Community Bail Fund to release protestors demanding justice for Breonna.
Together with I-DIEM, provide internships at Wakefield Brunswick for students of color who aspire to work within healthcare emergency management.
We will continue to advocate for justice for Breonna and others. There is nothing we can do to bring Breonna back. However, Wakefield Brunswick will never go back to our casual acknowledgement of these racial barriers within our practice and profession. We invite you to join us as we work with community-minded partners to reduce the social and racial barriers which put brown and Black lives at higher risk of healthcare emergency management disparities and personal safety.
In Solidarity,
The Wakefield Brunswick Team