The City Law School’s Dr Sabrina Germain shares her experiences in a joint Institute for Government/Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) event.
By Mr John Stevenson (Senior Communications Officer), Published
On March 15, 2021, Senior Lecturer in The City Law School, Dr Sabrina Germain, took part in the joint Institute for Government and AHRC event, Arts and humanities research in the COVID-19 pandemic: how priorities have shifted to help make a difference.
Dr Germain spoke about the impact of the pandemic on her research in the field of healthcare law and policy. Her monograph Justice and Profit in Health Care Law (Hart, 2019) published before the outbreak, was already addressing questions of resource allocation in the NHS, but COVID-19 became pivotal in many aspects, particularly bringing into sharper focus the importance of healthcare rationing and the role played by medical professionals in the process.
In the early months of the COVID-19 lockdown, her expertise led her to contribute to the European Journal of Risk Regulation special issue on the pandemic, writing, “Will COVID-19 Mark the End of an Egalitarian National Health Service?”. Her subsequent short news article in The Conversation attracted mainstream media attention leading her to comment on TRT World News and in The Times.
With her colleague, Senior Lecturer Dr Adrienne Yong, she also had the opportunity to co-author an article for the Journal of Feminist Legal Studies on “COVID-19 highlighting inequalities in access to healthcare in England: a case study of ethnic minority and migrant women” (one of the journal’s top 5 most downloaded article of 2020). Their subsequent co-authored piece in The Conversation and their research were cited in Al Jazeera (English) and German newspaper Der Freitag.
Dr Germain concluded her presentation on the difficulties of conducting research during months of lockdown, touching upon childcare and increased workload issues, but remained hopeful for the future with the vaccination roll out and new research opportunities.
The full recording of Dr Germain’s presentation and discussion is available on the Institute for Government’s website.