‘Nothing happened’: Vaccines took too long to get to Hamilton’s racialized communities

Community leaders say they have pushed for months for Black and racialized communities to be prioritized in Hamilton's COVID vaccine rollout and accuse public health of stalling, making false assumptions and failing to communicate.

I really think they don't get it," said Ameil Joseph, associate professor in the School of Social Work at McMaster University and a member of the Hamilton Vaccine Readiness Network. Most of the people we've been communicating with through the network and public health are white."

The significant issues raised by Black and racialized communities mirror problems with the vaccine rollout for Indigenous adults in March that was called muddled" and a break of trust" by community members.

Addressing high-risk populations and the most vulnerable ... will reduce risk for everyone and demonstrate that we care," said Joseph.

Hamilton's medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson says public health started doing critical" work with community partners on the vaccine network at the end of December.

Data released by public health in October showed visible minorities account for nearly 51 per cent of COVID-19 cases despite making up only 19 per cent of Hamilton's population.

Joseph agrees that the push began in December but claims, Nothing happened."

By February, he says community leaders were advocating for a plan with no action from public health.

We told them, Here's how you can do this,'" said Joseph. We will help do the outreach right now ... Say yes and we'll make it happen' ... That ask has been going on for months."

Richardson said the delay was due to shortages of vaccines rather than a lack of will.

Unfortunately vaccine supply remains limited, and so we are working together to maximize the supply we have for our priority populations." she said in a statement Sunday.

But Joseph says low vaccine supplies was just one excuse. Others included waiting for the provincial roll out to prioritize these communities or taking time to see how other cities did it.

The province said municipalities have the freedom to make their own plans," he said. We know we have a really high rate of infection among Black and racialized folks so we have the power to do something ... Now it's time to act. Those kinds of conversations kept happening and kept happening and they weren't resulting in action."

At the same time, the community leaders were fighting what they believed was a wrong assumption by public health that Black and racialized communities would be more hesitant to get vaccinated because of historical mistreatment and discrimination.

In March, Hamilton hired 10 vaccine ambassadors to build confidence in COVID immunization among racialized and vulnerable populations.

The main conversations were around combatting vaccine hesitancy," said Sarah Jama, lead organizer of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario and a member of the vaccine network. But ... hesitancy wasn't the main issue ... It's mainly a lack of access."

Richardson said public health was working together on access and hesitancy in parallel."

Joseph said community leaders ran out of patience on April 5 in an open letter to public health signed by more than 500 people including the director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, the director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, leaders of the Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team, the executive director of Wesley Urban Ministries, equity and inclusion lead at the Ontario Association of Children's Aid and many more.

How much more data do you need, how many stories do you need to hear, what types of maps can we ask for, how many committees and subgroups do we need to raise this in, how many legislative or administrative or bureaucratic excuses do we have to reveal as false to compel action," stated the letter. The answer is simple, the time to act is long past due. There is no reason, no excuse for leaving racialized groups off the priority list for vaccination when we know these groups are disproportionately impacted."

Joseph says it was only after the letter became public that Black and racialized communities were prioritized starting with hot spot postal codes L9C, L8W L8L, L8N and L9K.

We are committed to doing our best to ensure that we deliver vaccine as quickly as possible to our priority groups," said Richardson.

She pointed out that three postal were added on top of the two originally identified by the province where citizens - many of them racialized - carried a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality."

However, the rollout has been mired by major communication failures and a crushing amount of work put on volunteers in community organizations, say Jama and Joseph.

It wasn't until April 19 that Jama found about the plan for the roll out that was supposed to start April 24 so there was no time to mobilize networks to help.

The first clinics on April 24 and 25 made no mention of Black or racialized communities in a vague preinvitation email so the spots were taken up without prioritizing them.

A mobile pop-up clinic at Restoration House from April 26 to 30 wasn't announced until Friday afternoon.

The hotline is only going to be open for a couple hours at that point," said Joseph. Way too late and it still books up."

The slots were all taken within hours which Jama said shows access and not hesitancy has been the main issue.

We have this myth in the public health sector that Black and racialized people do not want the vaccines and we've seen this be debunked in Toronto ... and here in our city," she said.

The city opened up another clinic April 30 to May 2 at FirstOntario Centre. But it has never been widely communicated that Black and racialized people aged 18 and over in hot spot postal codes can access other city vaccine clinics by calling the COVID hotline 905-974-9848, option 7.

We needed them to commit to a real prioritization and that doesn't mean one-offs so the major win was them opening up the hotline," said Joesph.

The partnering organizations and community health centres are doing most of the work now because it got to a point where a lot of these community leaders were like, Look it's clear that you don't know how to do this so we're going to do it for you,'" said Joseph. We're going to help fill those appointments, we're going to do the outreach."

Richardson says public health wants community groups to disseminate the information because it's better if it comes from a trusted source with an established relationship" with the community.

We may not always get it right, and are continuing to work with our partners to improve," she said.

But Joseph points out these organizations are under-resourced, underrecognized and undervalued and they have their own jobs to do ... outside of helping people booking vaccinations."

Richardson says she recognizes the fatigue." at this point in the COVID-19 response.

We are committed to exploring ways together to augment support and decrease the burden while reaching those in need," she said. It can be challenging to find a satisfactory balance between getting vaccine into arms as quickly as possible and ensuring sustainable planning and execution processes, especially with all health and human resources so strained."

But Jama says the city is relying on a lot of support" from community agencies and grassroots groups.

I'm very excited about the opportunity to collaborate," she said. I'm also overwhelmed. A lot of us are volunteering our time."

Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com