YOU ‘It’s heartbreaking that you fare worse if you’re a non-white woman. It’s obscene’
hear from the Jades, we hear of the women who didn’t make it,” she says. “But it doesn’t mean her experience was any less traumatic.”
But change doesn’t come easily.
“Do I feel it’s being taken seriously at a government level? Not how it needs to be,” says Rochelle. “I did try to get them involved but they gave a statement and chose not to take part in the documentary – and it wasn’t for lack of trying, let me tell you.”
The statement from Nadine Dorries, minister for maternity services, reads: “The colour of a woman’s skin should have no impact on her or her baby’s health.
“I am absolutely committed to tackling disparities and making sure all women get the right support and best possible maternity care. I have launched an oversight group to monitor how the health service is tackling maternal inequalities.”
Rochelle doesn’t feel it goes far enough.
“There needs to be serious commitment to specific targets to improve the disparity between the experiences of white, black and brown women. They need to sit down and explain how we’re not going to keep reading the same headlines.
“It’s heartbreaking that you fare worse if you’re a non-white woman. It’s obscene.
“There needs to be a definitive goal and an aim of when we should reach it and there doesn’t seem to be that urgency pinned on it at the moment.
“There’s no quick fix here, which is really sad, but this can’t go on.
“We need to shout it from the rooftops. When does this stop? When is this going to be taken seriously?”
■ The Black Maternity Scandal: Dispatches is on Channel 4 tomorrow at 8pm