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Somali healthcare workers in Stavanger Municipality have been told to take a negative COVID-19 test before starting work. It makes the Somalis react.
– Although we recommend that people have a low threshold to get tested, not all people of Somali origin can be asked to get tested just because they belong to the Somali community. It contributes to prejudice and stigma, Abdirahman Omar Moallim tells NRK Rogaland.
Moallim represents the Young Minorities organization.
More than 220 people have been confirmed infected in Stavanger since Christmas Eve. Several of them have Somali backgrounds. However, Moallim reacts to the fact that the Stavanger municipality is now asking managers to specifically message their Somali employees that they must submit a negative covid-19 test before they can go to work.
– They say they receive text messages from their managers and bosses asking them to stay home or get tested, even though they have not been in close contact with anyone who has been diagnosed with the infection. And even if they haven’t traveled. They really have no reason to prove themselves or be at home, Moallim tells NRK.
Eli Karin Fosse, Stavanger Municipality Health and Wellness Director Photo: Kristian Jacobsen
Eli Karin Fosse, Health and Welfare Director of the Stavanger Municipality, explains that the municipality has targeted specific groups on several occasions, such as temporary workers from Sweden, students who came from Oslo and would work in the health sector, people who have traveled abroad. .
– This is the only way we could do it. I see this has aspects that make it difficult for a group of people in Stavanger. We don’t want that. But in a balance between considering protecting our most vulnerable users and considering whether someone might feel that they are stigmatizing, we’ve had to keep our users in mind, Fosse tells NRK.
