Career profile: Mercy Okai, Lewisham

Why did you become a nurse?
Being a nurse is something I always wanted to do since I was a child. I wanted to be part of the healing process for someone at their most vulnerable.

How has your career developed since you started nursing?
I was trained in Ghana, and went straight into paediatric emergency there. I wanted a change, so I came to the UK. Initially I was in adult emergency at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. Around the time, there was a lot of talk about school nurses and health visitors.
In Ghana, we didn’t have school nurses and I became interested in seeing what they did and I wanted to be there for children and young people in their formative years. I researched school nursing for a while, but I didn’t move into it until I came to London. I applied to be a school nurse, but I wasn’t sucessful the first time. I still wanted to do public health work, so went to work in NHS Direct for six months in 2009.
I received a phone call from the Lewisham school nursing team, who offered me a place and subsequently took on a leadership role. When I started in the NHS, a lot of the nurses I knew told me it was difficult for a BME nurse to move into a leadership role, but I thought I could do it if I continued to work hard.