In Raleigh, North Carolina, a group of six female Black doctors at WakeMed have joined forces to form Sister Circle to combat lingering COVID-19 vaccine skepticism in the Black community by targeting health inequity.
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According to CBS17, Sister Circle has partnered with other groups working in the Raleigh area and has been successful in vaccinating 14,000 people, 80 percent of which are African American.
“There’s no financial interest in what we are doing whatsoever. We went into medicine because we wanted to serve our communities,” OB-GYN Dr. Michele Benoit-Wilson of WakeMed told the outlet.
The physicians were inspired to create Sister Circle after noticing a lack of Blacks people getting vaccinated.
That’s when Monroe, a member of Sister Circle, approached WakeMed on the group’s behalf to see if the hospital would be willing to provide vaccines so they could offer the shots to the community more directly. In addition, the group wanted to form a dialogue in the community about vaccine inequality that impacted BIPOC groups.
After getting other local organizations to spread the word, the outlet reported that Sister Circle was able to get 450 people of color to show up to get vaccinated in 48 hours.
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While the group has made great strides, Benoit-Wilson shared that, “This Delta variant has changed the game.”
Learn more about what Black women should know about the new COVID-19 Delta variant here.