Filipino nurses celebrate 20 years in Warrington and Halton

As part of an international nurse recruitment drive, a team had travelled to Asia to recruit nurses to support a shortage in the UK at the time.

The nurses had never met each other until their orientation day.

Fast forward twenty years, and five of them – Richelle Lauder, Razil Villareno, Anna Botin, Minerva Irorita, and Loida Vergara – remain at the trust.

Meanwhile one – May Velasco-Cuento – has moved to the renal unit at Warrington Hospital, which is managed by Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen hospitals.

Six have moved to different areas in the UK, of which three have retired, and one has ventured further afield to a hospital in New York.

They are all still in touch and describe themselves as ‘family’ and godparents, or ‘second mums’ to each other’s children.

On their arrival in June 2002, the nurses arrived at the airport to be met by a coach provided by the hospitals to bring them to Warrington, and their first stop was Village Hotel for a welcome lunch.

The trust initially provided them with accommodation close to the hospitals on Lovely Lane, or Halton Brook for those working at Halton Hospital.

Today, they all live in the vicinity of Lovely Lane, except for Minerva, who lives in Sandymoor.

The original 13 nurses and the staff who supported them on their arrival at Warrington and Halton hospitals in 2002

Reminiscing, Richelle said: “We feel so welcome and have enjoyed our experiences at the hospitals over the last twenty years.

“We are all remarkably close to each other, and over the last 20 years have become like family.

“We are always at each other’s houses having a BBQ and eating – British food plays a huge part in our love of the UK, with our first pay we celebrated by having fish and chips.

“The one question we got asked then and still do is ‘Why Warrington’, and the united response from us all is that the hospitals wanted us and have looked after us.”

Each nurse has their own story of why they came to Warrington to work, including Anna, a staff nurse on ward B3 at Halton Hospital.

She explained: “I came across from The Philippines because everyone was leaving my hospital to come to the UK and telling me how good it was.

“I applied and came across, which was my first time abroad as well, as I wanted to further my experience in nursing.

“My first ward made me feel so welcome and supported, and even though 20 years have passed I still see and communicate with many of them, even though a lot have retired.”

Razil meanwhile is a staff nurse on the specialised Forget Me Not dementia ward at Warrington, and moving to Warrington was also her first experience of venturing abroad.

“I worked in a hospital and a lot of staff had come to the UK and worked for two years, returning to talk about their experiences and telling me to come and try,” he stated.

Warrington Hospital

“The salary was much better than what I was on, and I wanted to experience it for myself. I stayed and cannot believe that it has been 20 years now.”

Richelle works as an advanced critical care practitioner in intensive care and was only aged 22 when she arrived.

“I came to be able to travel more in Europe and the job was exciting,” she continued.

“The opportunity presented at the time was great as Warrington provided everything for us to come across.

“I have been fully supported on my career pathway, given plenty of support for professional development, and it has been great.

“It does not feel like we have been here 20 years as it has gone that fast, and we have loved every bit of it.

“We love our jobs in the NHS and the friends we have made – we just want to say thank you on our 20th anniversary to the hospitals for giving us this opportunity, as we are so grateful.”

Another question they are all asked by their colleagues and patients is why they have stayed in the UK for so long.

Their collective response was simply: “Because we have found our family.”