Shaheen Rahman QC has been asked by the charity Birthrights to chair their inquiry into disparities in maternal outcomes for ethnic minorities. Birthrights has assembled a panel of experts with maternity and legal expertise and lived experience to look at this issue. She comments:
“Birthrights wants to understand the stories behind the statistics showing that ethnic minorities are more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth and other concerns such as higher rates of maternal illness. The inquiry seeks to examine how people can be discriminated against due to their race and to identify ways that this inequity can be redressed.”
Shaheen Rahman QC was called to the bar in 1996 and appointed as a QC in 2017. She is an expert in healthcare law and human rights. Shaheen has represented both patients and healthcare providers at inquests and public inquiries and in clinical negligence matters, including cases concerning brain injury, obstetric tears and psychiatric damage. Her human rights work encompasses judicial review challenges to healthcare provision and cases of discrimination in the provision of healthcare services under the Equality Act and Human Rights Act. Shaheen is a member of the Editorial Team for the Quarterly Medical Law Review (QMLR) and has published articles in the legal journal Judicial Review. She wrote a chapter on Health and Safety Law for the UK Supreme Court Yearbook Volume 9 and contributes to the podcast Law Pod UK and the UK Human Rights Blog.