Dani: Hi Mum

Mum: Hi you guys. I hope I’m not giving you spending money too!

Anand: Nah, you’re okay, I’ve already borrowed mine from Taz….

Mum: This is Grace. She’s a new nurse that works with me, from the Philippines.

Dani: So, how come you’re working here? You like it?

Grace: Yes it’s nice. Nursing is paid better here and I can get work. I got trained back home but you can’t be sure of getting a job.

Anand: Oh. It must be very different here though?

Grace: At work it’s quite similar really, and actually a hospital I worked in back home was just as modern as the one here. Other things aren't the same though. It’s lonelier, I miss my family.

Dani: So you work as an ordinary nurse? Are you trained the same way Mum is?

Mum: That’s a bit rude Dani….

Dani: I’m only asking. I mean, I don’t know if nurses are trained just the same everywhere, do I Mum?

Grace: Well it looks like the training is pretty similar in the Philippines. We need the same qualifications, and the training is about the same length of time. I bet I did more about malaria than your Mum did though!

Dani: So do the patients treat you okay?

Grace: Er…. I’m supposed to treat them....

Dani: Yeah, but I mean, Mum’s told me she sometimes gets a bit of racism from patients…..

Grace: I can’t say I do, really. Now and again someone says they can’t understand what I’m saying.

Anand: Which is just polite racism really. Your accent is no harder to understand than someone Scottish.

Grace: Well … you might think so. But someone might be anxious about it. People aren’t at their best when they’re ill.

Dani: I bet you get paid less than British nurses….

Mum: Dani!! That’s private.

Dani: Oh Mum, I’m not asking how much Grace gets paid, I’m just saying, y’know, immigrants often get paid less than British workers. I mean, it’s you who told me that!

Grace: You’re right Dani. I have nursing experience back home, but they’ve started me pretty near the bottom of the pay scale, like a real beginner. I guess I’m cheap labour…. Like Eva the waitress over there.

Mumtaz: How do you feel about that?

Grace: I don’t like getting paid less than I’m worth, by this country’s standards. If I have as much skill and experience as another nurse, I should get the same. But on the other hand, I get more than I would back home, I can send money to my parents – they are old and they have no pension, and they are looking after my children. The hospital found me somewhere to live and everything….

Anand: So you live in at the hospital?

Grace: Yes for now. It makes shift work easier!

Mumtaz: Oh I see, if you have to get up at 5 in the morning it’s handy to be near work…

Grace: Exactly. And after a long shift I can walk for two minutes then collapse into bed. The hospital likes it too. Many of us immigrant nurses don't have families to get back to, so they often give us the night shift, or ask us to work weekends.

Dani: So will you stay, d’you think?

Grace: I don’t know. Now they’re saying they have to cut back on nurses cos they are running out of money. Perhaps we’ll be the first to go. I have a work visa, but if I lose my nursing job and I can’t get another one I’ll have to go home…..