SPECIAL FEATURE
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here’s calmness about Salome Mare Walsh that radiates. She’s gentle, quietly spoken and reassuring in her manner. You can see why she would be ideal to support someone experiencing a mental health crisis. Nursing is Salome’s passion. She’s equally passionate about changing the lives of people whose skin, like hers, is not white. She’s starting in the workplace, where she says there’s still discrimination, but also a fast growing readiness to embrace change and, all, importantly, turn it into action. And that excites her. She chairs Mersey Care’s Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) network. It’s been around for years, providing a forum for staff from ethnic minorities. Trust support was there when asked for, she says, but the network operated mainly in isolation – until now. “The network was introduced because there was a disproportionate number of ethnic minority staff going through disciplinaries, or suspensions, yet we make up less than a tenth of Mersey Care’s workforce. Anyone can have disputes but you shouldn’t have to feel if you speak up, that you’ll be discriminated against because of your race. I wanted to make it equitable, to give people a forum to share their experiences and issues, influence and drive change.” One of those issues is feeling like you don’t fit in. “I’ve known black people try to straighten their hair so they’ll feel part of a team. When colleagues touch your hair, you wonder if it’s to see how black hair feels. It’s therapeutic for them but it’s invading my personal space.
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Black History month spotlights the contribution black people have made to history and brought about change. MC magazine’s Rachel Robinson spoke exclusively to a mental health nurse striving to do the same.
“A colleague was told her hair felt like pubic hair. Every day we live with this and worse. I know of instances where patients won’t allow a black nurse to touch them.” Salome is frustrated that the diverse needs of different ethnic minority staff members and patients will struggle to be met – the term BAME ‘lumps people together who may not see themselves as the same.’
One of those issues is feeling like you don’t fit in.
“I’ve started to think the term doesn’t fit everybody, or feel good enough for the many different people it covers. Black people are different to Asian people, Chinese people; they have very different beliefs and cultures. It separates people based on looks and race. “I prefer the term people of colour; it takes away from a ranking system. Maybe we shouldn’t have a term at all. We should definitely keep talking about it.”
HOW DOES SHE FEEL ABOUT BLACK HISTORY MONTH? IS IT, AS SOME SAY, TOKENISTIC? “I can see why people may say that, it’s seasonal, they might ask why we need to have it at all, but there have been so many amazing contributions throughout history to science, medicine, and engineering, from black people yet we’re not told about them.
Caesarean sections were performed in Africa way before medicines were introduced. It’s important we know about them, they’re shaping all our futures.”
The pandemic has hit minority ethnic communities hard. Does this year’s celebration feel different because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on BAME communities, and the Black Lives Matter movement? “Yes it does. They’ve focussed people’s minds and highlighted the different struggles we face, not just sometimes but every day. The pandemic has hit minority ethnic communities hard. Black Lives Matter makes me emotional. It has taken a lot of courage by people who are fighting so hard just to be on the same starting line as everyone else.” Salome talks animatedly of developments within the BAME network and in Mersey Care. “Mersey Care has a duty to support its BAME workforce; it’s in the NHS People’s Plan. The Trust has always supported us, but now we feel we have allies giving us a platform. We’re at the table steering, giving advice, and helping them see it through our eyes. We’re driving this with passion and relishing the chance to do more.
