The Black Frontline has launched a platform to highlight the role doctors and nurses play in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

As part of its largest oral history project, the group is gathering stories of one hundred doctors and nurses in Ghana to share their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This forms part of a global project that seeks to frame stories and experiences of 300 black doctors in Accra, London and New York.

The multi-year project will focus on initiating a structural change by strengthening the healthcare systems of these strategic locations and reducing the inequity between black medical providers and their colleagues.

Founder of the Black Frontline Project, Esther Armah, believes the project will help to amplify the voices of Ghanaian doctors and nurses on the international front as far as Covid-19 is concerned.

“We want to ensure the voices of Ghana’s doctors and nurses are part of a history of COVID-19 where too often we centre those in the West and marginalise the [African] continent.”

“Not with this project. The experiences of doctors, of nurses in wards, hospital centres across Ghana will be heard,” she said.

A designated public website will be used for these oral stories and also serve as a crucial tool for researchers, public health workers and academics globally to reimagine healthcare that centres on traditionally marginalised people.

“The Black Frontline is the first draft of the history of global black healthcare providers’ role in the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Project’s Co-Director, Kim Gallon noted.

The Black Frontline is an oral history project by the Armah Institute of Emotional Justice, a global institute that works in Accra, New York and London.

The Institute implements emotional justice, a visionary roadmap for racial healing through projects, training and thought leadership.

Its activities and story gathering have been endorsed by the Ghana Medical Association and the Advancing Health Equity in New York.