Racism, Nursing and the NHS
Racism,Nursing and the NHS
The Extreme Sport of Nursing While Black: The Unofficial Survival Guide, started off as me passing on the do’s and dont’s to my daughter who was thinking of working for the NHS and like every other thing her race came into play. She is in the band of what i call the ‘triple threat’ i.e Woman, Black and Muslim. Unfortunately she, like many of us before her would have to do thrice the work, constantly prove herself in all that she does. I was determined to at least equip her with the weapons she would need as yes it is a war out there. At the same time there was also a lot of issues around racism and nursing on social media and this is how the book or booklet idea was born of using my experiences working as a nurse as examples of the things that are likely to trip you up as a black nurse on the NHS and how to avoid them, hence making work a tad more bearable while the NHS and other health organisations catch up to racism within themselves and work towards finding lasting solutions to eradicating it within and without themselves. For far too long, the onus of fixing the racism problems that plague the world had been left at our doors, we, the very victims. it was time the script was flipped.
It is crazy that Black people are still making firsts in 2021 worldwide and in the NHS. You would be forgiven for thinking that Black people only recently arrived in the U.K as opposed to having been part of the NHS since it's inception! How is it that out of the 223 NHS trusts only two have chief excutives from BME background , one being black? According to NHS providers.org: https://nhsproviders.org/inclusive-leadership this under representation of BME’s is repeated across NHS boards country wide, and even though they note that the number of senior BME’s is increasing, i wonder how many of them are Black? The NMC does not escape this affliction, looking at their 16 senior representatives.
How is it that those who are at the snowy white peaks of power within the NHS did not notice or question why the peak was so white? It all well and good that they are questioning this now but how is it that they did not notice this anomaly while rising up? How did they not question why their black colleagues were hardly getting out of the band 5 starting block, while they were sprinting towards positions of power? How did they not notice the email exchanges alerting them to new career progression options or the fact that some had job vacancy adverts tailored to their specific needs, just short of actually naming them? How did it escape them that they were disproportionately referring BME staff to their regulators for fitness to practice? Did they not notice or did they not want to notice?
How are we as BME healthcare staff and more importantly as Black healthcare staff now trust that these same people who most likely scaled to the snowy peaks of power on the back of our blood, sweat and tears all over sudden have been on their road to Damascus and have now realised that we as Black healthcare workers are equally as qualified if not over qualified and are quite capable to sit at and take command of the table? The proof will be in the pudding or so the saying goes because we Black people are not going anywhere! So while you all are busy trying to find ways to ‘invite’ us to the table, a table which we really don't need an invite to as we are not guests and have never been,you will come to realise, hopefully when it is not too late that We own the table!
