I spend a lot of time in hospital – this is what Brexit voters don't understand about the EU staff who work there

For a moment it felt like any other morning in hospital. Overly bright, noisy and with the faint smell of toast wafting down the corridor. Remembering the date, I rolled over bleary-eyed to check the news on my phone. I was interrupted by my nurse, Sylvia, a Spanish national, who had arrived to start my morning IV treatment.

Our conversation ended when a gentleman from Portugal came in with my breakfast. Soon after, a Polish healthcare assistant entered the room; she confided her fears about the future to me as she took my blood pressure. I started to feel acutely uncomfortable.

Every nurse but one who came to see me that day, was an EU national. Some were new faces, others I had been treated by for years, including the specialist nurses who treat people with cystic fibrosis like myself. My condition – the most common genetic disorder in the UK, primarily affecting the lungs and pancreas – means that I am no stranger to hospitals.

From the routine clinics every three months since I was six months old, to the lengthier hospital admissions when I am not well; I’ve grown up in an NHS bolstered by EU citizens and other foreign nationals. For the last 30 years, I have been cared for by hundreds of doctors and nurses, in many hospitals.

Amongst the headlines covering the impact Brexit is forecast to have on the NHS, I don’t think we are talking enough about how critical the 12.5 per cent of foreign nationals in the NHS workforce – EU nationals make up half of that figure – are.

From the Windrush era, which saw rising numbers of Commonwealth health workers shoring up our NHS, to the increase in workers from the EEA in the last 15 years; migration has always been a cornerstone of its workforce. Perhaps that’s because an organisation that holds the title of 5th largest employer in the world with fluctuating staff requirements, is naturally dependent on the free movement of labour across the EU.

It is true that the shortage of UK-trained health workers is a crisis of equal measure to the almost 4,000 EU nurses estimated to have left their posts in the UK in the last 12 months alone. We must step up the training (and reinstate the nursing bursary while we’re at it) of native health workers. After all, we have one of the lowest numbers of practicing doctors per head in the EU. In addition, a mere 260 people were enrolled on a nursing apprenticeship in the year 2017/18. Much more needs to be done to make our hospitals a rewarding environment to work in.

But with 51,000 NHS vacancies forecast by the end of the Brexit transition, the UK cannot afford to make it any less enticing for foreign nationals to sign up. The government has lifted the visa cap on Tier 2 skilled workers in healthcare but this is not enough, as it only applies to roles that are band 7 or higher in the NHS.

I worry how far isolationist rhetoric of Brexit will go, affecting not just EU workers but anyone who does not tick the box marked “White, British” in the NHS workforce statistics. What if the workers who remain eligible for a visa, simply choose not to come?

Being in hospital is an uncomfortable thing, and it takes remarkable people to blunt the sense of loneliness that patients often feel. As a member of the so-called “generation Easyjet” I hated the feeling of being cooped up on the ward, instead of boarding a last-minute flight on the weekend. It led to many comforting chats with staff of different ethnicities, when they had time. At times when I couldn’t go out into it, it felt like the world came to me.

Truthfully, I have rarely felt more British than the times I have been a patient; surrounded by nurses and doctors from all over the globe while benefiting from skilled, free medical care. So I’d like to thank Sylvia, Jorge, and the many EU and foreign nationals who have cared for me over the years. For my part, an NHS with them in it will always represent the strongest and most compassionate version of our health service.

Elly Aylwin-Foster writes about illness at Professional Sick Girl. She is in the process of writing a book called 'Work, Love, Health' encouraging people to think differently about illness