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[title]More than eight million people live in London. That’s a damn lot, isn’t it? From mental health services to accident and emergency, sexual health, maternity care, cancer, heart conditions, and everything else, somehow the NHS still manages to care for us lot, day in, day out.
Sure, it’s not perfect: far from it. Staff are burned out and 7.4 million people are on waiting lists across England. Last July, it was estimated that the NHS was facing a real-terms cut in funding of up to £9.4 billion annually. More recently, around 27,000 junior doctors walked out, striking for better pay and working conditions. Despite all that shit, it’s still here, still surviving, like the rest of us. In many ways, the NHS is just like London: it’s resilient, vast, diverse and abound with beauty where you least expect it.
When it was founded in 1948, the NHS was the first universal health system to be available to all, free at the point of use. Since then, it’s achieved massive medical milestones, including the birth of the world’s first baby through IVF in 1978 and the world’s first liver, heart and lung transplant in 1987. Oh, and then there was that little thing that happened recently – rolling out the vaccine programme and saving an estimated 60,000 lives in the UK. Not too shabby.
We’ve all spent the last few years clapping our hands, drawing rainbows, wearing that Sports Banger T-shirt and praising our NHS workers as heroes. Which is all well and good, obviously, but they’re also just like the rest of us: they love a day off and to enjoy all that London has to offer. From a trailblazing midwife tackling bias in healthcare to the country’s first deaf paramedic, we speak to eight Londoners about their work in the NHS as it turns 75 and their favourite spots in the city.
‘I love connecting with people – through a birth, or chatting on a night out in the toilets’
‘Before my current role, I was a birth centre midwife. I love assisting women to believe in their bodies: it’s all about the connection you make with people. It’s what I do throughout my life, whether it's being able to smile at a baby on the train or meeting someone on a night out in the toilets and chatting.
‘I went into midwifery with a very activist mindset. When we’re looking at racism, we need to understand how it’s embedded within systems like the NHS, which can mean people do come to harm: for example, Black women in the UK are still four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women. After campaigning work, I was awarded money to start a project around tailored antenatal classes for Black women with linked midwife roles – eventually it became a permanent position. My mission is to tackle unconscious and automatic bias and to amplify the voices of communities with protected characteristics.’
My London happy place: ‘I grew up going to Fabric and I love London’s nightlife. I find it so therapeutic to get lost in electronic music with all of the lights and the crowd.’
Kyia Omoshebi, 27, equity and inclusion lead midwife.
‘We are the experts in our own disabilities. We have lived experience’
‘In 2017, I was told I couldn’t keep working as a paramedic. I’d been in the unit for a couple of years and we had microphones and loudspeakers in our helmets to communicate. All of a sudden we were changing to a system the police use: an ear mold in both ears and a microphone, connected to your radio. I was born severely profoundly deaf in both ears so that doesn’t work for me, as I wear a hearing aid. I spent years trying to get on a motorcycle unit, and all of a sudden, I couldn't do my job anymore.
‘So I designed a new system myself, connecting my hearing aid to the ear mold. Everyone told me it wouldn’t work, but none of them were faced with losing their jobs if they couldn’t wear it. Last year, I was awarded the Queen’s Ambulance Medal for designing the headpiece and for being a first responder to the Westminster Bridge Attack in 2017. Now I’m 59, and I’ve been in the NHS since 1992: first as a paramedic, then in the air ambulance team, and now in the motorcycle response unit. Being deaf, I never thought I could achieve those things, but I did. We are the experts in our own disabilities. We have lived experience.’
My London happy place: ‘I’m passionate about street photography. Most of my days off you’ll find me in Borough Market, taking pictures and picking up ingredients to cook for my wife at home.’
Richard Webb-Stevens QAM, 49, London Ambulance Service paramedic in the motorcycle response unit.
‘Gang crime is consistent with cities – it’s not a London phenomenon’
‘I love London, but it’s not without its challenges. We lose far too many young people to gang casualties. Gang crime is consistent with cities and wherever you have high populations, social deprivation, inequalities, school exclusion and drug use. It’s not a London phenomenon – the difference is, we’re owning up to it. People are much more likely to get involved in gang culture if they come from a difficult home environment and we have kids here who go to school without eating breakfast.
‘As a mental health nurse, there’s nothing like seeing the journey of a patient who’s come in with anything from depression or anxiety to a broken back, and finally walking through the doors with a glimpse of hope. The system has gotten much harder to navigate over the last ten years – we have far fewer resources than I had when I started as a junior nurse and not as many mental health beds as we used to. But our healthcare system here is highly contested, globally. It’s very big and ambitious, that’s trying to look out to all of us under serious constraints.
My London happy place: ‘I love the street art on London’s canals, especially around Camden. If I hadn’t been a nurse, I would have wanted to be an artist.’
Dorcas Gwata, 52, mental health clinical nurse, gang culture specialist and global health consultant.
‘Being Black and queer, I’ve realised the power of my existence as a doctor’
‘London in itself is a hubbub of intersectionality. It was only when I moved out of London for my NHS placement that I realised how diverse London actually is: I was one of only four Black people working in a hospital in Cumbria. Even in this city, there’ll be loads of kids who haven’t met a Black doctor, let alone a queer Black one. And if you live a life with minoritised intersections, you realise that there will be people around you who look at you or see your existence and you’re like: bloody hell, I could do that, I could be that.
‘People think emergency medicine is when you’ve broken your leg, the doctor sees you, puts it in a cast, the end. But for me, I see A&E as a place where I can make real, active change in the direction of somebody’s existence. A time that I can check in with the young people that come to see me. And, over time, I’ve realised the power of my existence: being Black, being queer, being visibly non-binary, being trans. I just look different. And because I look different, that already captures the attention of patients and the public.’
My London happy place: ‘I’ve been going to the Southbank Centre since I was a teenager. It’s been a real place of significance for me in terms of finding myself.’
Dr Ronx Ikharia, 39, emergency medicine doctor and TV presenter. Dr Ronx’s non-fiction children’s book, ‘Amazing Bodies’, is out on July 6.
‘We’re going to lose so many professionals because people just aren’t being paid enough’
‘I work in a major trauma centre for children where we get a lot of stabbings and road traffic accidents, meaning we often need to debrief afterwards. You get a window into people’s lives: often, a child’s health is affected by their living conditions and health inequalities, like mould in housing. My job is super varied: you don’t find out which area you’re in until the day you’re in. Sometimes it can even be hilarious. Once, a mum opened up her backpack on the bed during opening hours and brought out a live cat. I thought it was a toy at first: there’s no animals allowed on the ward apart from therapy animals.
‘The long shifts – sometimes more than 12 hours – can be physically and emotionally draining. That said, you get very close with your colleagues and make lifelong friends. I walked out during the last nursing strike and voted against the pay deal. My partner is a junior doctor and has been striking too. It’s hard: we’re going to lose so many professionals because people just aren’t being paid enough for the job they’re doing.’
My London happy place: ‘I live minutes away from Battersea Park and would go there a lot on my lockdown daily walks to destress from work. I love how it’s right by the water.’
Emma Burns-Brown, 25, paediatric A&E nurse.
‘I think I really started to live my life when I moved to London’
‘I moved to London about seven years ago. A job in healthcare is rewarding in most settings, but somewhere like Bournemouth, where I was from, didn’t attract me very much. Moving here was a massive culture explosion and there’s such a breadth of diversity. As a gay man, coming to London was getting out of that small town vibe. I think I really started to live my life when I moved here.
‘As a community paramedic, I work in a GP practice and have patients booked in routinely for things like coughs, colds, chronic diseases and frailty. It’s important we have these roles – as healthcare becomes more digitised, we’re leaving the elderly population behind slightly. I love the team I work with, we support each other and band together when things get difficult.’
My London happy place: ‘I love Soho. Yard Bar is tucked off the main craziness of the high street, but still feels in the thick of it. I always have a pack of cards in my bag to play there.’
Joshua Martin, 26, community paramedic.
‘I’ve lived in London all my life – there are many isolated people who can fall through the cracks’
‘When I was a student nurse in the 80s, an old ward sister told me, “Dear, I just want you to sit with that lady.” She was dying. I was like, “What do I do?” But she told me to just sit with her and let her die peacefully. So I did. And all I could think was, “This is right,” you know? She had beautiful white hair and looked really peaceful. I thought, “Oh yeah, this I can do.” I’ve been a palliative care nurse ever since, caring for people living with terminal illnesses. My patients have so much bravery, courage and humour. I feel immensely privileged to be there with them through something like that. I did a bit of private healthcare once, but that didn’t suit me. I’m an NHS girl, really.
‘I wish people knew how under-resourced we are and that we can’t always make the sort of promises we want to make, especially for people planning end-of-life care. If it doesn't happen, people think it’s our fault. You say “We’ll try,” and they hear “It’s not going to happen”. We’ve got a lot of resources available in London, but they can be difficult to access. I’ve lived in London all my life – it’s a massive city and there are many isolated people who can fall through the cracks. When we see people, we find ourselves wondering, “How is this happening?”’
My London happy place: ‘I love theatre. It’s my escape. I discovered the Actors Church (St Paul’s) in Covent Garden when I watched one of their moonlight shows, and I just couldn’t believe all the inscriptions inside.’
Marian Hickey, 68, palliative care nurse.
‘I’ve fallen in love with this city without even realising it’
‘I moved to London after going to medical school in Cardiff. Now, I’m a partner at my general practice in Newham, where I’ve worked for 26 years. It’s been lovely to have been at the same practice for that long: 20 years ago, I saw a mum and did her baby check, and that baby is now a mum herself. It was quite a privilege to have seen that whole cycle of life.
‘There’s more than 200 languages spoken in this borough and so many different people who come to the clinic: from asylum seekers who’ve recently experienced hardship, to really nice, routine baby checks. Newham also has the highest Ukrainian population of the London boroughs – seeing some of their trauma and how they’ve lived through that is quite humbling. But human beings are amazing and resilient. People come to London, they don’t speak any English and they completely assimilate. London is just so alive. There are always newcomers, keeping it vibrant. I’ve slowly fallen in love with this city without even realising it.’
My London happy place: ‘I unwind in Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury after meetings at the British Medical Association. These little spots of greenery in London are so important.’
Dr Farzana Hussain, 50, GP.