Image Credit: WomenArtistUpdates, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Nottingham branch of the UK Nurses Association of Jamaica emerged in the early 1980s and has made a significant contribution to the lives of BAME nurses and the wider community. This blog explores the early history of this Association.
The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) was formed in London in 1978, followed by branches of the association in Birmingham and then Nottingham. At the conference of the Commonwealth Nurses Federation in 1977 all the delegates recognised the need to “improve communication between countries of origin in all aspects of health care”. [i]
From its inception, the vision of NAJ in the UK was to provide support, advice and guidance to the new recruits coming to work in the UK from Jamaica. The arrival of African-Caribbean nurses in the 1950s was not a new phenomenon, it was part of a history of African and Caribbean migration which had begun hundreds of years before. From 1948 however, the British Government through the respective Ministries of Health and Labour, in conjunction with the Colonial Office, the General Nursing Council and the Royal College of Nursing, funded recruitment drives to attract qualified nurses, trainee nurses and domestic workers to work in the newly formed National Health Service.
The Windrush Generation of Nurses (1948-1971) were to experience racism and discriminatory practices in their workplaces. Differences in nursing grades were not fully explained and many of the migrant nurses found themselves in training schemes for the two-year State Enrolled Nurse qualification (SEN) which had limited prospects for promotion. Even when they held the required education qualifications from their home countries to undertake the higher status State Registered Nurse (SRN) course, which unlike the SEN, could led onto management and education roles, the Windrush nurses soon discovered a system that was biased in favour of their white colleagues. By 1954 more than 3,000 Caribbean women were training in British hospitals and in 1966/67 the total number of nurses and midwives from overseas who trained here had risen to over 16,000. Today one in every five nurses and midwives are from BAME backgrounds. [ii]
The Nottingham branch of NAJ was formed in 1985 on the initiative of Rosa Hodelin, a midwifery tutor based in Derby and she was supported by Gloria McCleod a midwifery sister and Carmen Burke a health visitor, who both living and working in Nottingham. Details of the group, its plans and a call for support was placed in the New Citizens Newsletter and Journal in November 1984 (See Box).
| Extracts from New Citizens Newsletter and Journal, November 1984 promoting the NAJ and the Nottingham Branch “The NAJ was formed in 1978 as a result of the Commonwealth Nurses Federation Conference where all of the delegates recognised the need for improving communication between countries of origin in all aspects of health care. The Association enables Jamaican and other West Indian nurses of all grades and disciplines working in the UK to understand the importance of maintaining good relationships through meetings, shared knowledge, exchange of ideas, application of knowledge for appropriate health and social care for all, both in Jamaica and other West Indian Islands and the UK. The Association is concerned about certain groups in Society. Therefore, they try to identify various groups who need help and offer their assistance, eg. the elderly, mentally and physically handicapped. A project for which the Association is very proud is the provision of hearing aids for children of St. Christopher School for the Deaf, St Anns, Jamaica.” “Both the NAJ in London and Birmingham are willing to help us form a group in Nottingham. We have to be receptive and prepared to start a group for their help to be beneficial.” “Togetherness and unity will be the theme [of the next Nottingham meeting], sharing aims, objectives, achievements and problems should be among our interests. Please support the cause and form a strong group here in Nottingham”. |
The NAJ motto was ‘united we stand’ and their aim from the outset was to develop a working relationship between black nurses as well as to make an impact in the communities where they lived and worked. They provided health education, social visits to hospitalised individuals who had no one to visit them, as well as the elderly in their homes. Members of the group started a well person clinic and some members of the Nottingham group also visited people in prisons. The Nottingham branch was involved in working with statutory, community and voluntary organisations and helped organise cultural awareness days for example at Mapperley Hospital, Nottingham Trent University and they worked with the Castle Museum on a video called Black Working Lives. In partnership with Nottingham University a counselling course with cultural dimensions was inaugurated.[iii] They also hosted many fundraising events and used some of the funds to provide hearing aids and batteries for the St Christopher School for the Deaf in Jamaica. Members also networked with a range of other groups locally including OSCAR – the sickle cell and anaemia group; the Association for Caribbean Families and Friends; the Marcus Garvey centre which caters for older African and Caribbean residents; the Trinidad and Tobago Nurses Association and the Black Mental Health Association.
In recent years the NAJ played a significant role in the design and erection of a commemorative statue of fellow Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole outside St Thomas’s Hospital, London.
Statue of Mary Seacole outside St Thomas’s Hospital, London. Credit: author
A roll call of nurses who were involved in the Nottingham branch of the NAJ in the early years were as follows:
Gloria McCleod Dorothy Bennett
Carmen Burke Babeth Henry
Rosa Hodelin Beverley Pinnock
Rosa Duncan Judith West
Avis Holcombe Enid Lee
Eve Malcolm
Using the nursing registers on Ancestry it has been possible to find out a little more about these pioneer nurses which we will publish in due course. If you can add to this important history of Nurses in Nottinghamshire we would love to hear from you. You can contact us at: nottsnursinghistory@outlook.com
Information about the NAJ can be found at www.naj.org.uk/
Author: Val Wood, Member of The Nottinghamshire Nursing History Group.
[i] The Nurses Association of Jamaica (U.K.). New Citizens Newsletter and Journal, November 1984.
[ii] The story of black nurses in the UK didn’t start with Windrush. The Guardian, 13 May, 2020. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/13/black-nurses-in-uk-didnt-start-with-windrush-covid-19-deaths
[iii] Nurses Association Jamaica. Nurses Association of Jamaica UK: 40 Years of Service. (2019). Conscious Dreams Publishing.
Nottinghamshire Nursing History Group 
