Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu (born Elizabeth Mary Furlong; 2 July 1947) is a British nurse, health care administrator, lecturer, and Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London.
Her upbringing had been heavily affected by moving between institutions and family. She spent just over two years living with her mother, a relationship that ended when her stepfather, who did not accept her and drank heavily, started to physically abuse her. She was placed in a Catholic children's home where she was cared for by nuns, including several years in the Nazareth House convent in Birmingham.[4][6]
Often harshly punished and humiliated for wetting the bed, she remembers being made to stand with a urine-soaked sheet over her head as a punishment for wetting the bed. In the book she recalls, that later in life when working as a health visitor, "I made sure to keep up-to-date with more humane treatments for bedwetting". Nonetheless, she grieved leaving the convent to go and live with her mother. Every period of relative stability in childhood ended in sudden collapse. Following an unsettled childhood she qualified as a nurse, then health visitor. Shortly before her 25th birthday she suddenly found her father: barrister and former Nigerian Ambassador to Italy and the Vatican, Lawrence Anionwu. She was to visit Nigeria frequently and later changed her surname to Anionwu.[4]
Family
Anionwu has credited her father, Lawrence Anionwu, a barrister and diplomat, as the first person to provide her with career advice. Anionwu has a daughter, the actress Azuka Oforka.[7]
Career
Anionwu began her nursing career inspired by a nursing nun who cared for her eczema at the age of four.[8] At the age of 16, she left school with seven O-levels and started to work as a school nurse assistant in Wolverhampton. She continued with education to become a nurse, health visitor, and tutor. She travelled to the United States to study counselling for sickle-cell and thalassemia centres as courses were not then available in the UK. In 1979, she worked with Dr Milica Brozovic to create the first nurse-led UK sickle-cell and thalassemia screening and counselling centre in London Borough of Brent.[8] This was the first of over 30 centres in the UK using the Brent Centre as a model.
Anionwu was appointed the dean of the School of Adult Nursing Studies and Professor of Nursing at University of West London. Here, she created the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice at the University of West London, retiring in 2007. In 2001, Anionwu, along with Professor Atkin, wrote The Politics of Sickle Cell and Thalassemia. In 2003 she became a Trustee and subsequently vice-chairperson of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal and in 2005, she wrote, A Short History of Mary Seacole. Following the unveiling of the statue at St Thomas' Hospital in June 2016, she was appointed a Life Patron of the Mary Seacole Trust.
She chaired several projects for the NHS Sickle and Thalassaemia Screening Programme, including the development of "Caring for people with sickle cell disease and thalassaemia syndromes: A framework for nursing staff" that was accredited in 2010 by the Royal College of Nursing, and "Understanding the contribution of sickle cell and thalassaemia specialist nurses" (2012), funded through a grant from the Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity.[8]
Honorary Advisor to England's Chief Nursing Officer's Black & Minority Ethnic Strategic Advisory Group
Publications
In 2016, she published the first edition of her memoir called Mixed Blessing from a Cambridge Union ( ISBN978-0-9955268-0-8).[9] In 2021, her updated memoir, Dreams From My Mother, was published by Seven Dials, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group.[10][11] In her book, she reveals the many layers of her life, from a childhood marked by hidden truths to uncovering her father’s identity, experiencing a political awakening, and emerging as a leader in Black health advocacy. She sheds light on the profound health disparities affecting ethnic communities, spanning issues from sickle cell disease to the inequalities exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.[12]
In 2019, in recognition of Anionwu's major contribution to nursing, research and campaigning, the University of St Andrews conferred on her the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.[18] Also in 2019 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University, in recognition of her major contribution to the nursing profession.[19]
At the Pride of Britain Awards in October 2019, Anionwu received the Lifetime Achievement Award, "in recognition of her passion for nursing and dedication to reducing health inequalities",[20][21] the presentation being made Janet Jackson.[22][23]
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