‘Call the Midwife’ Highlights a Deadly Ongoing Problem

Call the Midwife is at its best when using stories from the past to highlight how little things have changed in the present. Yep, this seemingly wholesome series about nuns, midwives, tea and cake actually has a heart of pure steel.

Episode 2 of the show’s 13th season tackled an issue that’s been in the British news a lot recently: that of landlords leaving their tenants to languish in homes afflicted with black mold. It’s always been a problem, but it became a horror in 2020 when a toddler named Awaab Ishak died from a condition caused by mold exposure.

At the time, housing secretary Michael Gove called the case a “tragedy” and said, “Awaab’s case has thrown into sharp relief the need for renewed action to ensure that every landlord in the country makes certain that their tenants are housed in decent homes, and they are treated with dignity and fairness.” There was a little bit of progress made at first—the company Rochdale Boroughwide Housing had its funding revoked and its chief executive was fired—but many people in the UK still live in housing where their very breathing is affected by black mold.

This week, Call the Midwife took us back to 1969 and showed us the depth of the problem through the story of Edna Bristow (Annabel Betts), a mother of one with another child fast approaching. She had been abandoned by her husband, but refused to accept financial help.

After Edna’s second child was born, it soon became obvious that her first, Tracey, was seriously ill. It turned out that the issue stemmed from the black mold that ran throughout the house, something Edna’s landlord had advised her to just paint over and leave.

Tracey ended up in the hospital with bronchitis, leaving Edna to look after the newborn baby while her toddler lay in critical condition. It was a very hard watch … and it sparked rage in the hearts of many Call the Midwife viewers.

Luckily, the episode had a happy ending. Edna’s daughter survived, and after Shelagh Turner (Laura Main) gave a furious speech to the landlord, the Bristows’ flat was repaired so the black mold wouldn’t get in anymore. But in real life, people often aren’t so lucky.

“Breathing too much”

It’s now been over three years since Awaab Ishak’s death and the problems with Rochdale Boroughwide Housing still persist. A day before the Call the Midwife episode aired, the BBC published an article with stories from people still living in RBH properties. One woman told the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporting Service that her landlord claimed that the mold problems were caused by her “breathing too much at night.” Others had been told to leave their windows open, which of course lets all the heating out of the house—heating that’s obviously desperately needed in the middle of winter.

It’s an infuriating problem and one that could easily be solved if companies like RBH got their act together. And although Call the Midwife is being vocal about the issue, after the episode aired, the same old “this show is too woke!” complaints cropped up on social media, as they often do each week. Clearly we have a long way to go.

(featured image: BBC)