THE NURSE SPEAKS

ONLY REALISTS DREAM THE IMPOSIBLE

I don’t think anyone can be a good nurse/health promoter in a cosmopolitan society without understanding human culture. I relate our culture to the Iceberg culture; i.e.
10% above the waterline and this represents symbols that people believe in, slogans that people say to convince others and policies that are meant to be guidelines in our daily interaction with others.
90% under water represents the reality, the way people behave, their true culture and nature, the hidden culture or truth that people don’t want others to know.
This means that we only know 10% of the reality of those we interact with.
As a nurse, my job title could easily be health promotion and interaction with the general public. Over many years in this particular profession, I have developed one of the best skills in interpersonal relations, i.e. I have become a good listener and I have also perfected interpreting body language of those I interact with. Therefore, unlike the majority of people who love to talk more than listen, I believe I am now able to penetrate the iceberg and read the reality that is hidden under the iceberg.

Seek and you shall find is one of my favourite biblical statements. Nursing and teaching were the only professions allowed for blacks under apartheid. I did my diploma in Business and Insurance in East Africa whilst in exile to defy this stereotype born from racist ideologies. But when I went back and got a job in Insurance, the highest position that I could get as a woman was to be a New Business Clerk whilst two men that were in my class and got a 2nd class diploma went and got management jobs. I was livid and decided to go back to school within months of starting my job and learn some more. I had friends who had secretarial jobs and were paid more than me, so I did a diploma in secretarial, but the thought of being told what to do by these two men who I knew from my experience in class with them that they are pretty thick in their ideas put me off from changing jobs. I then went on and did a degree in Business management. It was not easy as most of the work was self directed with classes on Saturday, but I learnt a lot in terms of running a business. During that period I fought with my then manager for being a crap manager who was always arguing with me and I got him sacked. He failed to see reason where there was reason preferring to talk me down and shouting at me and I put a caricature poster in his office of two people arguing with these words; ‘Don’t argue with a fool because people won’t notice the difference’ and he wanted me fired for that - hence I got him fired instead with tragic consequences to his career. I got a thank you from headquarters who were not aware that he was crap until I exposed him.

By the time I came to the UK I had completed my MBA degree, but I was also getting fed up with the greed in this Insurance company that I realised that my career in business was a bad move. I could not think of any other career after that than a caring profession. I recall my interview for nurse training with three nurse tutors, two women one white and another from Mauritius and an Asian man from Trinidad. I loved the way they introduced the interview, “Tell us about yourself.” Now, I always say to people who say that to me, “How long have you got?” I did not in this case, but I told them about my secretarial work and how I had to leave the country because of the threat to my life from the father of my son. I also told them about the death of my mother and brother and that the reason why I wanted to be a nurse was to help people and to improve the quality of people’s health. I don’t remember anyone of them asking any further questions apart from the woman from Mauritius who asked me why I did not do my training in other African countries. I could have come up with the worst response given the fact that she also chose the UK instead of other countries. I cannot remember what I said, but I passed the interview.

After my mother and brother’s death I would have given up on life if it was not for my son who was born exactly a year after my brother died. I even called him Michael after my brother; but his father who belonged to the Shona tribe gave him a Shona name when he went for his birth certificate, and this was a translation from the Ndebele/Zulu name that I had given him as his middle name; ‘Mduduzi’ - the comforter. Not that it bothered me that my son had a Shona name, but as I wrote in my previous blog, his father turned out to be an arsehole and a dickhead who stole from me and my son’s piggy bank to fund his life of prostitution even having sex with my own so called friends and then blaming me for going off sex when I was 6 months pregnant and sick as a parrot. I was sick through out the 9 months of my pregnancy and at 6 months I was a stick insect apart from the bulge in front of me and just about able to go to work as I was the main earner, earning 3 times what this arsehole was earning. When I left him and moved into a flat that the Insurance Company gave me, he went berserk and started hounding me and using my son as the reason why he wanted me back. It was my elder sister who he had used as a mediator who forced me to leave the country in fear of my life from this arsehole – hence I have no time for arseholes. After what I have been through, it is only a ‘thinking man’ who will meet my requirements in a partner.

Doing nurse training just about brought back a little bit of life in me, and if it was not for the sake of my son still in Africa, because his father obtained a court injunction to stop me taking him away from my sister who was looking after him, those would have been the best 3 years of my life. Missing my son nearly sent me bonkers so I spent a lot of money travelling to Zimbabwe to see him during my holidays. A £300 a month nurse grant minus £100 that I sent my sister who was looking after my son was not enough for someone to lead a normal life, so I spent my week-ends and days off working in nursing homes and hospitals as a care assistant. I did mainly nights for the simple reason that I was fascinated by my understanding of the human body and devoured all books on anatomy and physiology. I spent most of my days off in the library. This somehow helped me rationalise why my mother died and I did so well in my last ward, a cardiology ward that I got the job before I received my pin number. It was a scenario of today I am a student nurse in a cardiology ward and tomorrow I am the staff nurse in the same ward.

Now, 22 years later, I am a nurse who works with GPs and these GPs trust me enough to work with me as a colleague rather than a blind and stupid employee who must be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where to do it. The plus for me now is that I don’t see as much death as I used to see in hospital, and this brings me back to the first death that I witnessed as a third year student nurse. As nurses we cannot be judgmental or discriminate, but we certainly do have favourite patients. It was in a thoracic ward and all patients were wired to one machine or the other. I just took to this elderly white guy who was terminally ill and I used to make him laugh and he promised me in front of his wife and family that if he recovered he would marry me. One day as I was talking to him I saw his lips turn blue, and instead of remaining calm and walking to the nurse desk and dialling the 222 number for emergency I went berserk and screamed down the whole ward, emergency, emergency, emergency! He died as was expected and I was given a week off as compassionate leave, as I was inconsolable. His family invited me to his funeral and sent me a bouquet of flowers. I was inconsolable with my mother and this experience made me realise that human life is valuable what ever colour or shape the person is.

Now, let us get political, I hate Nazis with passion for murdering millions of innocent peaceful and hardworking Jews just as I hate racist apartheid for murdering and enslaving my ancestors. This is part of the history that I hate; Nazis had a scapegoat for their own inadequacies – Jews. Today’s main stream politicians and the BNP have a scapegoat for their inadequacies – immigrants. And here I am an immigrant giving my whole to the welfare of the British society. Since I qualified as a nurse I have worked 247 to earn a living and further educated myself purely to promote health among the British population, the majority of them express their gratitude to my knowledge and help. However, those with a BNP Nazi mentality decline to have a nigger touch their ulcerated maggot infested legs. I have no problems with that because I am very fastidious and I hate filth and dirt. My house is an example of that and I quote my friend SophieJ when I told her that I was spending the week-end cleaning my house and she turned round and said; ‘But your house is clean Florence.’ She had spent a night in my house and I respect her judgement.

My mother was like that; she cleaned and polished her little huts with a passion only associated with someone who is fastidious. She also refused to share a bed with my father once she found out that he was a philanderer. That is the reason why she dedicated her life to our village. To put it in its right context; in 2003 when I visited my village trying to help them build a hospital, one of my aunties who was my mother’s best friend pulled me to the side and said, ‘You cannot be your mother, she was too pure in heart,’ and she was right. I am in all contexts, my mother’s reincarnate, but unlike her I am also vengeful. She forgave all the time and that cost her life, she was barely 50 when she had a stroke that killed her 3 weeks later. So what is the difference between me and my mother? I am simply a bad will ambassador. When someone upsets me, I tell the world about it. I complain and I fight back until I destroy the person. But I am not that bad because if those who hurt me apologise, I humbly accept the apology.

I love complaints and I thank everyone whose complaint is genuine because it enables me to acknowledge my mistakes and improve myself in interpersonal skills. A genuine complaint gives me a feedback of my actions. There is a legal judgement between Donoghue vs. Stevenson (1932) that concluded that; “You owe a duty of care to any person who may be affected by your actions" (neighbours principle). Sadly, statistically 91% of people don’t complain; and not surprisingly, in America those who complain are white males well educated and have higher income –Michelle Obama where are you?

Now, this is my little educational note to those who are in a position of power, but have not gone through my experience; this is the only way to avoid bad will ambassadors like me;
- Goal setting – this allows you to set your own goals without the inconvenience of bad will ambassadors.
- Control – through commitment to what you aim to achieve.
- Co operation – through encouraging participation from the likes of me.
- Communication – share information with others and learn from others.
- Competence – through education and training.

In my SWP branch in Lewisham I am forever biting my tongue in case I say the wrong things, but it is no where compared to the Kent district where the organiser’s aim was to turn all new cadres into prostitutes. Now you understand what I mean by a bad will ambassador? In my 50 years I have had only 3 consensual sexual partners. At 16 I was rapped by a man who used his knowledge and power to overcome me. At 24 I was fooled by the father of my son who went on to steal from me to fuel his sex addiction. At 33 I married a man who refused to acknowledge my people because they were poor and a disgrace. At 44 I met a man who crucified me because I had lost all my money and was useless to him. Now I am 50, the same age my mother died and I kick arse because I don’t want to end up like my mother. Out of six of us from my mother, only 3 of us are still alive. I don’t blame my two siblings who have done everything to destroy me for hating me, because they hated our mother for who she was – a woman who dedicated all her life to make other people’s lives better. No apology will ever make up for what my living siblings have put me through since my mother died because to me they are no different from the Nazis who slaughtered innocent Jews. But I am a caring nurse whose love is health promotion. My Welsh mother in law despised me for being African and black, but I went on loving her until the end. I was there until the end for both my in laws even when their own children deserted them. That is the nurse in me. I value life what ever form or shape it takes.