WHAT'S IN A NAME? When being Kenyan saved my Nursing job!

I would be lying if i said i have never really given much thought to my name(s), after all they are me, my identity even during the times i have rebelled against said names! My whole life has been defined by my names so it came as no surprise when my career was about to be defined by them, even i did not see in what way.

I have ( and I know, many other Black people/ Nurses) lived and worked in a world where my name determined whether I got a job interview, whether I got a job, whether I got promoted or paid equally as my peers! You get it! My name seemed to be a barrier, so when the opposite happened and it became my saving grace, I was very surprised to say the least.

Working for an agency or the nurse bank gives you the flexibility to choose your working hours as well as where it is you would like to work. You also get to work with different teams on different wards and develop working relationships (or not), and this knowledge is often filtered through the various agency/trust bank grapevines. Which wards/units and teams were okay and which to avoid. This meant that there were wards/units that always struggled to get their vacancies filled and the ward and duty managers got clever. They devised ways to get these vacancies filled, unbeknown to us by creating false vacancies within the popular wards/units thus taking away choice, safety nets and in some cases putting patient safety at risk.

I got caught up in these ‘work houdiniships’ on a couple of occasions and apart of causing a of angst and disorientation, they also caused pay disputes with regards to who was meant to sign the timesheets and whose budget the pay would come from! you ended up chasing payments weeks after you had completed your shift. So, i tried to avoid them as much as possible, but oneday i got caught up in one houdiniship from hell.

I had booked a shift on a ward that i knew very well as i had worked on this particular ward as a permanent staff member before and knew the staff and the layout well. I turned up for my shift, bright and early only to be told that they were fully staffed and did not need me and had not booked me! I called the trust bank to let them know what was happening and was told that yes i was indeed booked in for that ward but was meant to work elsewhere to go help with washes and be the healthcare assistant for the day. The ward i was to be sent to was one everyone avoided due to how rude the staff there were making it a very unpleasant ward to work on, hence why they struggled to fill any vacancies. I declined and stated that i would rather go back home as the whole essence of agency/bank work was the freedom and ability to be able to choose when and where you worked, a point that neither the trust bank call handler nor the duty manager took kindly to and i was threatened with referral to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for breaking the patient safety code of conduct by leaving the hospital short staffed.

I left the ward after explaining the situation to the manager and matron and went home. On my way home, i received a call from the trust bank informing me that i had been suspended and all pending shifts cancelled pending an internal investigation, and that my return to working for the trust bank would be dependent on the outcome of the investigation. I was annoyed that they would do that and i was confident that nothing would come of the investigation as i had done nothing wrong! So i told her that while i felt it was unfair, their action, given that i was a full time bank worker, i would await the outcome of the investigation. I was then told to write a statement of events, which i did and emailed it to the head of the trust bank as requested.

Two weeks later i received an email from the head of the trust bank asking me to report to her office. Being summoned is never a pleasant experience but i was surprised this time. It was a friendly setting and a very relaxed chat. She said she wanted to meet me and talk to me face to face before she decided how the investigation was to proceed. She proceeded to ask me where i was from as my name reminded her of a brilliant Kenyan Doctor she had worked with years ago at a previous trust. We talked about all things Kenya and how while my name was similar to the Doctors, we were not related in anyway and that i had never met him, let alone met anyone with the same surname as mine professionally during my working career in the NHS.

She then asked me to narrate what happened on the day, which i did and i also told her how common these houdiniships were becoming especially when the duty manager was the same one who had been on shift on that day and how on many occasions, she had moved me to wards where i was way out of my depth, like surgical trauma and when i voiced concerns she had replied that i was a qualified nurse with a PIN. This is when, i was informed of the complaint the duty manager had written, claiming that she had requested me to go to a different ward to help cover due to a crash call and i had refused. It was the first time i was hearing of this false account of events. I told her that she could confirm with the ward manager who had taken the call and spoken to the duty manager and then relayed the message to me, that there was no crash call and that i would not have refused to go to that ward nor left if that was the case! I also got to hear of the letter of support from the ward manager and matron decrying the drastic measure that had been taken to suspend me.

She then told me she had wanted to look me in the eye when talking to me, as she could not believe that a Kenyan would behave in the way that the duty manager had described, because she had worked with Doctor Onyango and other Kenyans and they were all very good at their jobs, reliable,honest, hardworking and put patient safety above all else, so she could not believe that i had been negligent. She had also looked at my file and in the five plus years i worked for them and there had been no complaints made against me nor any caution on my file. She lifted my suspension but said she would keep a note on my file for two weeks and if no issues arose during the investigation, then my file would be wiped clean.

I later found out that the duty manager was sacked after complaints from other nurses about her attitude and false statements amongst other things. I would like to say that houdiniships are a thing of the past but that’s not the case, unfortunately and because the largest agency/bank workforce are from the Global Majority, they bear the brunt of vexatious complaints. I picked up a great assertive tip from (yes), a brilliant Kenyan Nurse for those times you find yourself in a houdiniship:

“State that your skills set do not apply on that ward that you are being moved to, however, if they are happy to guarantee a waiver in writing that they will take full responsibility for any clinical and safety shortcomings that could potentially or accidentally occur, then you are more than happy to work on the new ward!”

I still haven’t met this Doctor Onyango but if he ever reads this, i would like to say a big thank you/erokamano and also a very big thank you to all my fellow Kenyan Healthcare Workers out there.

x

Shamim aka The Wandering Nurse.