Morley marks International Nurses Day 2021

Today Morley marked both International Nurses Day and Mental Health Awareness Week with a series of two Penny Lectures focused on nursing within the mental health sector.

Read more below, but if you’re interested in pursuing a career in nursing, then be inspired by Fatmata’s story…

Fatmata’s story

Since Fatmata was a little girl, she wanted to be a nurse, to help people and ease their pain. That’s why she’s been studying at Morley College London to build up her skills to become a nurse.

Today is International Nurses Day, a celebration of people like Fatmata who put themselves on the frontline to care for us when we are at our most vulnerable.

Fatmata’s journey in becoming a nurse has been a long and challenging one. But she worked hard and recently received four offers from universities to study as a nurse, thanks to completing her studies at Morley College London.

“From a young age, I have wanted to become a nurse to assist people,” Fatmata says. “Basically most of my life, I’ve been helping people one way or another.”

Originally from Sierra Leone, Fatmata came to live in the UK 12 years ago when she married her husband Mohamed.

Since enrolling at Morley College London in 2015, Fatmata has juggled her studies with life as a mother of three children (she gave birth to her youngest as a student) and work as a care assistant. “It’s been challenging, especially during the pandemic – doing online classes while the children are doing online classes.”

But she’s very thankful for the support that Morley College London and its tutors and staff have given her. Without the childcare facilities Morley supplies, she never would have been able to study as a working mother.

Fatmata has completed many courses at Morley, including Maths, English and Health and Social Care to get herself ready to take Morley’s gateway to a nursing degree – the Access to HE Diploma: Nursing.

The Access to Midwifery and Nursing Diploma is an intensive programme that provides students with the foundation knowledge of the healthcare profession and human anatomy and physiology.

Fatmata has four conditional offers from universities to study nursing but hasn’t decided which one to take yet. The degree course will start in September. She says she is looking forward to it.

“I think nursing is a very rewarding job. To be honest, I don’t look at the money side, I look at the joy it brings out more than anything and being able to help someone who can’t help themselves and hearing their thank yous … that’s more valuable to me. I’m happy to be on that journey.”

Fatmata, student at Morley College London

Penny Lecture: “Curing Queers” Mental Nurses and their patients, 1935-1974

Delivered by Dr. Tommy Dickinson, Reader in Nursing Education and Head of the Department of Mental Health Nursing at King’s College London, this lecture explored the plight of men who were institutionalised in British mental hospitals to receive ‘treatment’ for homosexuality, and the perceptions and actions of the men and women who nursed them.

Drawing on a rich array of source materials – including previously unseen, fascinating (and often quite moving) oral histories – ‘Curing Queers’ examined why the majority of nurses followed orders in administering the treatment, but also why a small number surreptitiously defied their superiors by engaging in fascinating subversive behaviours.

A recording of this lecture will be released later in Spring 2021.

Penny Lecture: Mental health nursing, yesterday, today and tomorrow

Delivered by Stephen Jones, who joined the Royal College of Nursing as professional lead for mental health in January 2021, this lecture took viewers on a journey exploring mental health in nursing across hundreds of years.

From the historical dynamics of social power, to how this feeds into the present and the ever evolving training and education to a view of the future of nursing, the lecture speaks to life during Covid and beyond.

Watch below or on Morley College London’s YouTube channel