By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today

A few decades ago, immigrant communities in England comprised a few Africans and Western Indians. They were permitted to enter Britain for ‘cheap’ labour, as the average Englishmen hesitated to work and be on the National Assistance (dole). The first generation of Irish masters in the building industry was allowed to enter next. Later, some (mainly the Irish) became tycoons in road construction, motorway maintenance and house construction.

As a result, much of Africans and some Asians became the basis of the working strength of the British Railway and underground and local councils for cheap labour. At the same time, in the hospital, many females chose to select a Nursing career by Registering with the Nursing Council. There are three grades of nurses in the Council – one may become a registered nurse in Psychiatry (RMN); (SRN) State Registered Nurse, and the Auxiliary nurse (someone who performs duties such as washing and dressing patients, making beds, and hospital).

Only a few professionals had gone to England with work permits from bourgeois countries. The first generation of Africans and West Indians were very peaceful people, unlike what we get today, the second and the third generation. At the same time, the Asians concentrated on their families and focused on their families relaxedly.

Unlike today, it was pleasurable to walk down London streets at night without being bothered about being mugged. Once, I lived in West London, a trendy place where many Sri Lankans lived. During weekends socialising became part of the routine. My wife and I walked to Holland Park to their bedsitter and peacefully returned home in the early morning. They now live in a large house in Sydney, Australia, and his wife is really into gardening. It still brings me nostalgic memories of how we used to enjoy Friday evenings at their bedsitter, enjoying ourselves thoroughly and taking a relaxed stroll along Holland Park.

Change of Environment

Over the years, however, the seemingly second and third generations of Immigrants out of the first batch and their behavioural patterns of the young have changed dramatically. They have become boisterous, unruly and undisciplined. In contrast, today, the city is full of people who are drug addicts, similar to Lanka, and psychopaths and mentally disturbed patients are released from mental hospitals to the community as a direct result of the Late Margaret Thatcher’s Government policies, which made so many psychiatric hospitals to close down.

In the early stages, the Sri Lankan community in London mainly consisted of a few professionals who migrated to the UK on work permits, which enlarged the immigration population. One of the professionals known to every Sri Lankan was a doctor who used to live at Stafford Place, Colombo 10 before she emigrated to London. This doctor was another mother to all Sri Lankans. She arrived in the UK in 1951 and commenced medical practice as a General Practitioner. She died at the age of 82.

Many Sri Lankans were registered with her. She had genuine feelings for Sri Lankan students, in particular. She was considered a second mother. On every occasion, a Sri Lankan student went to see her. She gave the student Vitamin B Complex tablets and said, Please keep yourself warm in winter.”

She greeted all her patients with a broad smile as one entered her consulting room. Without any enquiry, wrote on the prescription, Vitamin B complex tablets irrespective of whether the patient required it or not. She was a natural second mother to students and Sri Lankans, and she knew, ‘as a general rule’, that students did not have a square meal. Therefore, she used to prescribe students five mg of Valium to calm their nerves, considering the stress factor in London.

Whenever there was a complex issue relating to the patient’s health, she would refer the patient to a specialist or a hospital instead. Many GPs were thinking of their budget allocation. It is a Health Regulation that if a patient visits a GP’s surgery more than twice for the same complaint, the GP should refer the patient to a specialist or hospital for treatment.

tilakfernando@gmail.com

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando