@bull_robin56713@NotFarLeftAtAll I disagree with yr POV. Trust me when I say Nigerians are ready to be loyal/ invested in this country. You know the problem?We are never seen as people who contribute and our lives are made difficult.Take a look at the current rules and system in place. It dampens our enthusiasm.
To everyone who felt offended or disrespected by that “foreign nurses can’t speak English” post by @RupertLowe10 , your reaction was justified. Every bit of it.
Let’s be clear. Nobody simply wakes up, packs a bag and strolls into the NHS.
We didn’t land here by accident.
We studied for exams they designed, met standards they wrote, and passed assessments approved by their own institutions.
So when someone tries to shame migrant healthcare workers, it is not just an insult to immigrants. To me, It is a direct question mark on the competence of the British systems responsible for testing, verifying, and licensing us.
And that is where the whole argument collapses.
If people who passed the NMC checks, English exams, OSCEs and Home Office requirements are suddenly “not good enough,” then who exactly is failing?
Because it is clearly not nurses/doctors/other healthcare workers.
And this is why I want every international healthcare worker to remember that you did the work.
You cleared every barrier. You met every criterion.
You have earned your place here and you do not need to shrink your identity or apologise for your accent.
Nobody needs to twist their tongue, bleach their culture, or dim their light to fit in.
You have every right to hold your head high.
This is 2025. A global nation like the UK should behave like one and not by attacking the same professionals who help keep the system running every single day.
So to all HCWs, your emotions are valid . Your voice is valid. And you should never feel intimidated into silence.
Don't let anyone make us feel like we are the problem. We are part of the solution and we will keep reminding them.
Your presence here is not a favour — it's value.
#Catherinespeaks
Every time this MP speaks on healthcare, it’s the same pattern- blame immigrants!
So let’s start with the basics.
1. No foreign nurse “barely speaking English” can work in the NHS. To even begin the process, you must pass IELTS/OET with some of the highest language standards in the world, sit the UK’s own CBT exam, verify your licence from your home country, and still pass the OSCE after arrival.
These are your rules and we meet them.
If after all that you still think immigrants “can’t speak English,” then the issue is not competence, it’s the bias in your mind.
Raise the requirement to IELTS 8.5 if you like; people will still meet it, and you still won’t consider them “good enough” because the problem is not the score, it’s your perception.
2. You called foreign staff “potentially unqualified and incapable.” Based on what?
Where is the data?
Immigrants make up a massive percentage of the NHS workforce. If we were “incapable,” the outcomes, mortality rates, and safety records would show it but they don’t.
What you have is not a fact, it's just a convenient political narrative.
3. You asked why the UK “relies on foreign labour,” The answer is simple - it is cheap labour.
Every visa category requires a minimum salary of £ 41,000, except for the Health and Care visa, which is set at around £25k.
For a registered professional with people’s lives in their hands, in this economy, that is exploitation, not generosity.
British doctors are striking.
British nurses are leaving.
British student midwives are graduating into unemployment. And instead of addressing poor pay, unsafe staffing, and a system everyone is running away from, you turn immigrants into the scapegoats.
4. You also speak as if UK-trained staff are automatically superior. Let’s be honest. Even the three- or four-year nursing route or UK two-year fast-track nursing programmes, nurse associate routes, and the watered-down training pathways cannot be compared to the depth, rigour, and technical foundation of Nigerian nursing education.
I can only speak for Nigeria because that’s the system I trained in. Five years of university-level nursing science, one year of internship, and one year of national service. Strong anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, community health, and clinical practice. Nigerians go through hell and high water to qualify.
To have someone call such people “unqualified” is absolute nonsense!
And this is exactly why your rhetoric is dangerous. You refuse to acknowledge how much immigrant nurses actually contribute. You refuse to admit the NHS would collapse without them.
You refuse to face the fact that the real problem is your government starving the system of funding, good pay, and proper workforce planning.
Instead, you attack the very people keeping your health service alive.
The real issues are unsafe staffing, chronically underfunded hospitals, pay that cannot match the cost of living, outdated workforce planning, and policies that make healthcare unattractive to the very British workers you claim are being pushed aside.
But instead of addressing any of that, you always attack the people who keep the system running.
And yes, honourable MP, calling this out is addressing racism. When you imply an entire group of people is inherently less competent or less capable despite passing the exact standards your own institutions created, that is prejudice.
If you wanted a conversation about improving standards, we could have one. But this generalised, sweeping condemnation of foreign staff is not healthcare reform, it’s political theatre. Stop the theatrics please.
Immigrants didn’t break the NHS.
We are the reason it’s still standing.
@BBCNews@SkyNews kindly help me inform your MP in case he does not see this.
Thank you.
@livewithjudith@lollypeezle If women tell tales, Una no dey believe but if it’s the other way round, Una go carry am.
Did you hear when the man said his wife is truly hardworking and while pregnant she worked in warehouses?
She’d bring the money home and the man will give her only transport fare from it?