Cape Town – A black South African nurse working in the United Kingdom (UK) was reportedly left shocked after she was allegedly told to “bleach her skin white” following a racial incident.
Reports indicated that the nurse was told by her boss to “go bleach her skin” to get better treatment from white patients.
The incident took place while Adelaide Kweyama was working as an agency nurse between November 2017 and February 2019 at an immigrant removal centre in Heathrow, a tribunal heard, according to Mirror.
Kweyama was apparently racially abused by a group of male detainees who called her ‘n*****, monkey’ on one occasion.
“However, when she reported the incident she was told by a superior: ‘You need to get a pool of bleach to bleach your skin so that you come back tomorrow white and the patient will be nice to you.’
“Later on that day, the same senior nurse was overheard talking to another colleague and saying: ‘I do not care, let her go and bleach her skin, I am sick and tired of people coming to work and saying they are not well,'” the report said.
Following the incident, Kweyama left her job, saying she had become depressed, Daily Mail reported.
After her contract ended, Ms Kweyama successfully sued her employer, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, for race-related harassment and victimisation, the report said.
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