Survival struggle of a migrant nurse in the NHS

Olanike’s story highlights the difficulties that visa restrictions cause overseas nurses, especially when they have a family. Despite acquiring qualifications and the UK’s need for overseas nurses, her story exposes exploitation, as well as emotional and financial suffering inflicted on overseas nurses, through precarity. This chapter narrates the further struggles created by the COVID-19 pandemic as she sought safe working conditions. She narrates the way racism and discrimination have stifled her career advancement despite her qualifications as well as how structural racism through visa costs and lack of recourse to public funds have left her family in poverty and made her feel undervalued. The chapter highlights the impact of racial capitalism. She calls for meaningful support for overseas nurses, more diversity in leadership, and fairer immigration policies to acknowledge the critical contributions that overseas nurses made during the COVID-19 crisis.