The nurses in the NHS have always been touted to be its lifeline. As emergency frontline workers, they are always on their feet. For them, perhaps, the physical strain of Covid-19 is more manageable as compared to the emotional and financial pressures. Despite this, they continue to serve the people unconditionally. The 72nd anniversary of the NHS is a fitting occasion for us to understand, empathise and value nurses more than ever before. Within the nurse workforce, there are communities that deal with additional pressures and hierarchies and chains of discrimination.
On this anniversary of the NHS, Asian Voice spoke to one of the nurses from the Asian community who not only is a nurse himself but also an activist and a lecturer of Child Nursing at City University of London. Rohit Sagoo founded the British Sikh Nurses organisation to help raise physical health and mental health awareness, and education about maintaining positive wellbeing and healthy lifestyle choices in the Sikh community and beyond. As a nurse himself, he was witness to the issue of stem cell donors in the community and has worked with DKMS promoting registrations on the stem donor lists among Asian community members. With BAME people more affected during the pandemic, have Asian nurses been (or do they fear being) discriminated as a healthcare service provider? Sagoo said: “We know that institutional racism exists in the NHS and quite frankly, we have now got emotionally exhausted of fighting our way up the managerial ladders of healthcare. In my own profession, I find that the wheels are slowly turning but it can't be just lip service and changes in policy”.
As a contributing member of the Asian community and a practising healthcare professional and academic, Sagoo’s encouraging advice to community members who are aspiring for a career in nursing at the NHS is this: “I think as a community we still have a stereotypical view of gender roles in employment and it would be good to see more South Asian British males breaking a few more glass ceilings and coming into nursing, especially children's nursing, or indeed midwifery”. As one of the first British Born Asian male children's nurse in the late 1990's, it would be great to see South Asian males entering the nursing profession, Sagoo added.
The NHS is home to nurses from all communities in the country and they proudly put service before self. Sagoo urges thatnursing and midwifery as professions “need to develop culturally, with specific interventions to reduce the stigma associated with the nursing profession in the British South Asian community”. So how can the Asian community get more involved in the NHS? How can male members of the community pursue their passion for nursing at the NHS? Sagoo says: “It is imperative that nurse educators, nurse recruiters implement designed policies to improve workforce diversity and widen participation from all BAME communities into healthcare professions”. The role of the UK government in supporting the nurse workforce needs to be bigger. In terms of nurses from Asian background in the NHS, Sagoo says, the government has the power to provide policy and legislation to support BAME nurses and this has to be driven by the fact that BAME nurses, especially those on the front line, need support when it comes to bullying, harassment and promotion.
