This digital story was written, recorded and produced by Thanuja Hettiarachchi, a researcher on the Covid Chronicles project.
Here, Thanu interviews a nurse who has been working in the UK for 18 years. In this testimony, she speaks about her experiences of workplace bullying and racism. However, as she explains, it is not just majority-on-minority-group-racism which bothers her, even though it is still a problem. She reports how among minority ethnic groups, rivalries, animosities and racisms can be just as intense within the same ward and organisation. She explains how there are no other nurses in her ward or work who speak the same language as her and so she is marginalised by those who share a language, national or ethnic background. She argues that people get very depressed or leave the job due to inter-ethnic bullying and prejudice but this is not seen as a problem by management. She also believes that there is no easy solution to this problem because people are afraid to speak up for fear of making matters worse. So the message here is that while everyone may in principle support international womens day, from the perspective of some NHS staff, there isn’t much to celebrate.
This video has been posted to mark International Women’s Day 2021 #IWD2021. We #ChooseToChallenge racism in the workplace.