But why would you leave the NHS, “tHeRe’s jOb sEcURiTy” 🙃

When I initially made the decision to leave the U.K. healthcare system, it came after I was fed up of the institutional racism and the racism that I personally experienced from my manager and her manager. This wasn’t the first time I had experienced racism in the U.K. workforce, but it was certainly going to be the last.

When I was a student I had experienced it from peers, and I remember my first year placement on an elderly care ward in which I got called a “Black bastard” by an old man with dementia. I was simply trying to do my job, but even in his demented state, he couldn’t see beyond my phenotype. At that time, I had to just suck it up and care for people, regardless of the disrespect, abuse, or ingratitude that I experienced—all for a certificate and a job.

I worked at two different hospitals, in two different parts of London, plus I trained in a hospital outside of London, and one thing that was undeniably clear is that many white people in the U.K. healthcare system, whether they’re colleagues of the same pay grade, seniors, or patients, are racist, and unapologetic about it too!

Three years after leaving the system, and I’m once again being reminded of how ungrateful these non-Black people are towards us and our efforts to help THEM!

Mary Seacole, a name (that I hope) many Black people are familiar with. A Jamaican nurse who had to FIGHT white people to HELP THEM in their beef with OTHER WHITE PEOPLE! The Crimean War had nothing to do with her (or our people for that matter), but she offered her services to the British. Their ignorance and biases had them reject her help. After fighting tooth and nail, she was finally given the “opportunity” to work along side their healthcare professionals to assist during the war. This is a part of British history that is not shared because if there’s anything that white folk like to do is to erase non-white contributions towards (their) society, and act as if they’re the best thing since sliced bread (mouldy bread, maybe…). In fact, Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole were age mates and their lifetimes overlapped, yet Florence is hailed and Mary is shunned by the (white) Brits.

Several decades after Mary Seacole’s death and after years of fighting for recognition (we really need to stop begging for their acceptance, validation and recognition—but that’s another discussion for another day), they (the white British establishment) finally agreed to put up a statue of the late, great, Mary Seacole. Now, in August 2024, I’m seeing that her statue has been vandalised and disrespected, not even making a decade of it being erected. This act of vandalism is not only a disrespect to her honor given how much Mary had to go through psychologically at the hands of the Brits and their racism, but it is also symbolic of the daily plight that Black women (and men) face in the U.K. healthcare system. Day in, day out, they abuse us, use us, exploit us, but continue to seek our aid in their collapsing system. Even till this day, they send a call to the Caribbean for doctors and nurses to come and work for a system that hates them, a people that don’t appreciate them, and a country that will waste no time in reminding them (no matter how much time is spent here or how many generations are born here), that they’re not really British.

Those of us that are out here try to warn those back home of the abysmal conditions we’re living in and the psycho-spiritual hardships that we endure daily. Yet, our warnings fall on deaf ears and our communities back home believe that we are simply gatekeeping the wealth of the West (Ha! That couldn’t be farther from the truth). The community back home (across Africa and the Caribbean) come here seeking greener pastures, not realising that it doesn’t get much greener than the lands of Africa and the Caribbean (literally and figuratively). They think that coming here will give them opportunities and access to wealth and resources to come up in the world and pave a better path for those back home. But they’re quickly met with the unsettling truth that there is no greener pastures, just a modernised plantation with Black people being intentionally kept at the bottom to prevent us from accessing wealth, power and the tools needed to improve our situation on an individual and communal level.

Barely two weeks ago we were experiencing riots and anarchy and now, we’re seeing Mary Seacole’s memory being tarnished because of the insecurities of non-Black people and their own ignorance that has been fuelled by their leaders. They know little (if anything) of Black contributions to their survival as a collective, and their leaders keep them in a constant state of denial because their entire identity is dependent upon us being inferior. When the truth is presented to them, cognitive dissonance and white fragility rear their ugly heads and they can’t handle the truth that everything they’ve been taught is lies and they owe us a incalculable amount more of respect (and reparations) that they cannot even fathom, let alone afford.

Though the riots have seemingly calmed down and in days, weeks, months, and years to come, it will become just another historical event. They (non-Black people) have wasted no time in reminding us that they don’t accept us, they don’t appreciate us, and they don’t care for our presence (past, present and future). We’ve worked so hard to prove ourselves to them, and for what?

How much more disrespect are we going to take as a people?

How much more ignorance are we willing to put up with?

How much more denial, abuse, psychological turmoil and gaslighting will we stand for?

When I left the NHS I didn’t have a plan, but what I knew was that I liked being a nurse, and if it wasn’t for racism, I would have kept on nursing. If there was a safe space for Black people to give and receive care, I’d work for that service, knowing my phenotype doesn’t mean anything. But I looked around and I knew that the ripeness of neocolonialism and imperialism meant that our community was (and still is) severely lacking what it needs—what I need. And it was in that moment that GOD spoke to me and said “if you can’t find what you’re looking for, create it”…

Seeing the vandalism only served as a reminder as to why I left, and why I can no longer be a willing participant of a system that doesn’t serve me. Last week they were chanting “stop stealing our jobs”, this week they’re disrespecting a woman that may have saved some of their ancestors lives. What will it be next week??? They aim to restore the statue and keep it standing, but when a people make it so clear they don’t want our help (though they clearly need it), why don’t we cut them off from our resources, time, energy and lands and leave them to fend for themselves? It’s what they want, is it not? Why are we allowing ourselves to be told “we don’t like you” more than once?

Unfortunately, many Black people in the U.K. (and across the West) are too attached to our history here and too afraid to branch out and to make the bold step of giving the narcissist what he/she wants. We’ll forget the summer of 2024, and we can count on the white folk to not include it in the history books, but some how we expect change when they keep on erasing the facts of what changes THEY need to make.

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I left the U.K. healthcare system, not because I didn’t enjoy caring for people, but because I got tired of working for a system that had proven time and time again that it didn’t care for me. Because I got fed up of them vandalising my soul and gaslighting me. Because I refused to stay there just because my grandmother came over several decades ago to help start a healthcare system that they denied her granddaughter the right to succeed in. A system that had it not been for my grandparents and many others, it would not be in existence today!

Their ungratefulness knows no bounds but only we can stop the ugliness that we keep experiencing at their hands. If only we’d choose to separate and not foolishly assimilate. Whilst I understand the sentiment behind our desire of being seen as “equals” and being “accepted”, it would bode well for us if we had more pride and a degree more of self respect in which we stop begging for a seat at someone else’s table and instead choose to celebrate ourselves, accept ourselves, know and remember our own history, and start creating our own tables. The key to destroying the narcissist is not to continue engagement and interaction with them, it’s to cut off their energy supply, go from co-dependency to independence, and to know thyself. Until we have learnt to detach from their toxicity, they’ll continue to disrespect us and every time we give them an (emotional) response it feeds their ego. They’ve once again stained a piece of Black British history and the honour of our ancestor. At which point will we realise that they won’t change, not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to. They define the world by phenotypes and the actions of those that have their phenotype speak far louder than their words.