newsBelfast riots fuel a growing fear that doctors, nurses and medics from ethnic communities might soon have had enough of race hate in Britain
Hospitals in Britain stay alive thanks to the work of dedicated nurses, doctors and medics from around the world. Without them, health experts say the NHS would fall apart in a matter of weeks. (Picture of the outside of a leading hospital in Hull, Yorkshire, by Trevor Grundy)
by TREVOR GRUNDY
Nurses in Northern Ireland have been left terrified after ethnic minority workers were targeted in suspected racist attacks during riots in Belfast.
Over two hundreds extra police officers have been sent to Belfast from other parts of the UK. They are ramping up patrols around hospitals after a nurse was chased and intimidated by four masked men as she arrived for work at Ulster Hospital.
Police Scotland is expected to send around 90 officers, including five inspectors, under a mutual aid agreement with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Officers have also been sent from the North West and the North East of England.
At the start of this weekend there was deepening concern by residents in strife-torn Belfast that more riots are on the cards.
And not only in Belfast (pictured above) which houses more asylum seekers per capita than anywhere else in the UK. There were 1,607 asylum seekers in taxpayer-funded accommodation at the end of March this year. It is roughly one asylum seeker per 200 people in the city.
Nationwide, the police are braced for further action to safeguard the public and the ethnic minority communities who have been subjected to sickening scenes of violence sparked off by a knife attack on Stephen Ogilvie on Monday night.
Video footage of the horrendous attack by a man – said to be a former policeman in Sudan – has been seen by millions of people.
It shows a man pinned to the floor while an assailant named as Hid Alodid hacked at his face with a knife.
A report in the Daily Mail (June 12, 2026) said that Mr Ogilvie, who is in his 40s, is said to live in the same block of north Belfast flats with the man alleged to have attacked him.
(The word “alleged” has to be used for legal reasons).
One NHS nurse from an ethic minority community was chased by four masked men while on her way to work at Ulster Hospital, East Belfast.
She bravely insisted on remaining in the Ulster Hospital to care for the most vulnerable, after homes and cars were destroyed in acts of violence by un-known men.
According to The Guardian newspaper, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) had been warned for eight months about anti-immigration activists circulating the addresses of properties that were targeted in last week’s riots.
Twelve police officers were injured in the clashes – involving bricks and petrol bombs. – that broke out last week.
On December 26 last year, Denis Campbell, the health policy editor of The Guardian, wrote that foreign doctors and nurses are increasingly shunning the NHS because anti-migrant rhetoric and rising racism have created a “hostile environment” throughout the UK.
He wrote – “The health service is being put at risk because overseas health professionals increasingly see the UK as an unwelcoming and racist country. Record numbers of foreign-born doctors are quitting the NHS and the post-Brexit surge in those coming to work in it has stalled. At the same time, the number of nurses and midwives joining the NHS has fallen sharply over the past year.”
The NHS is in crisis. No-one is denying that.
Last week, newspapers, TV and radio stations all carried reports that the NHS is on the verge of collapse.
When it comes to serving the health needs of ordinary people, Britain is turning into a third world basket case
Over 3,000 patients every day receive unsafe and undignified treatment- sometimes on trolleys in hospital corridors, sometimes even in car parks.
Health leaders said the numbers show the practice is rife throughout hospitals in England.
Professor Nicola Hanger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, described the figures as “alarming” and are “a damning indictment of how far care standards have fallen.”
In short, the last thing Britain needs is attacks on nurses and doctors from ethnic minorities who have chosen to work in the NHS which even its well-wishers say is on the point of collapse.