Death rates among Filipino health and care workers are higher in the UK than in the Philippines, campaigners have said.

The country’s UK ambassador has called for staff to be ‘properly protected’ after figures show the death rate among Filipinos was the highest across the NHS and care services.

As of May 16, there have been 173 confirmed Covid-19 deaths of frontline health and care workers. Of those,  23 (approximately 13 per cent) were of Filipino heritage.

Among those to have lost their lives include two who died this week – Norman Austria, a healthcare assistant at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, and Jun Terre, a nurse at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire.

In a message after their deaths, ambassador Antonio Lagdameo urged the NHS to ensure heroes who put their lives on the line were properly protected while doing their job.

Nurse and officer for the Filipino Nurses Association UK, Francis Fernando, said there have been more deaths in the UK during the crisis than in the Phillippines – although a lack of reliable data makes it difficult to prove definitively.

Official figures indicate that around 18,500 Filipinos worked in the NHS in England – more than any other single ethnic group outside the UK as of March 2019 – amounting to roughly 1.5 per cent of the service’s 1.2 million workforce. Mr Fernando believes the community has suffered more deaths than any other ethnic group.

Mr Fernando, who worked for 19 years in the NHS before moving to a private care home in London, said the Filipino Nurses Association had heard ‘a lot of anecdotal stories about BAME staff being hand-picked to work in Covid wards, again without adequate protection’.

He added: ‘Few of the BAME staff will say no. It’s our job, we have a duty of care to our patients as nurses and professionals. So, unfortunately, they are being put in harm’s way.’

Eleuterio – ‘Boy’- Gibela, 68, worked at Blackpool Victoria Hospital as a cleaner since 2003 after following his wife Deborah there.

Mr Gibela continued working despite suffering diabetes and chest problems – both of which would put him at greater risk if he caught the virus.

On March 2, he died in the same hospital after contracting Covid-19.

His youngest daughter Kristiana said: ‘My dad would never complain about anything. I know he was a really hard-working man.

‘They would ask him to do overtime and cover for someone; my dad would never say no. He was that kind of man.’

Her elder sister Louella said he contracted the virus on his last shift, when the ward was treating ‘a lot of Covid patients’.

She said her mother was trying to arrange for him to be transferred or sent home, but ‘he was very stubborn’ and wanted to finish his work.

There have been calls for a public inquiry into the number of deaths among black and minority ethnic (BAME) workers from Covid-19, as official statistics show vast disparity in death rates between people from different backgrounds.

The NHS has since introduced risk assessments for BAME staff and is working with organisations such as Mr Fernando’s to allay fears.

He said more should still be done to protect workers and believes many are still not putting official guidance into effect.

In one case, Mr Fernando said he had spoken with a worker in an oncology ward near Covid patients, who had been told to continue working despite being almost seven months pregnant.

He added that it was even more difficult to ensure proper practice in private care homes, citing another example of a nurse with cancer who was told she would be unpaid if she stopped working.

‘If she does end up with Covid-19 she’ll die, no questions about that,’ he said.

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