NHS heroes ... and targets of racists
I cheered the role of BAME medics in the battle against Covid-19 - but I didn't expect the torrent of abuse that followed
"Little China girl." "Paki doctor." "Black bitch." These are just some of the racist slurs directed at NHS nurses and doctors as they work on the frontline. I remember feeling sick when I first read an ITV report detailing these incidents at the end of last year. And it was at the front of my mind as I whooped in support of our carers on Thursday night.
I returned to that report last week after posting what I thought was an uncontroversial tweet, noting the fact that all four doctors who had tragically lost their lives to coronavirus at that point were people of colour, and that it was a reminder of how much the NHS relies on BAME and migrant doctors and nurses. Just over four in 10 NHS medical staff are BAME, and almost one in three doctors are not from the UK. From the first Caribbean nurses who arrived after the second world war, the NHS has been built on the backs of both migrant and British workers; in the late 1960s, half of all doctors below consultant level were non-British.
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