Nurse Roberta Batchelor posted a series of racist content on Facebook in August 2024
Roberta Batchelor was awarded a Pride of Nursing 2015 at the Birmingham Rep Theatre(Image: Birmingham Mail)
A Birmingham nurse whose career spanned nearly 45 years has been struck off after sharing anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant posts on Facebook.
Roberta Batchelor posted a series of images including a boat filled with people arriving at a beach captioned “these give nothing and get everything” and a homeless veteran with the caption “these give everything and get nothing” in August 2024.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) said she also posted a picture of a child being chased by men, one wielding a knife, captioned “Next time when you pay your taxes, remember some of your money goes for the “Protection of Mosques.”
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Other content included “a highlighted section of the book of Deuteronomy stating ‘Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours.
“‘They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.’”
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A fourth post was a split image showing a security inspection captioned “YOU AT THEAIRPORT” and a man departing from a boat captioned “MUHAMMAD AT DOVER.”
Mrs Batchelor was working as a ward manager for the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust when she made the comments on her Facebook account.
On August 5, 2024, the Trust received a complaint from a member of the public raising concerns about posts.
An investigation was launched and she admitted making the posts and apologised, saying she was “disgusted” with herself for being so angry and she “should never allow myself to get into such a situation as a professional”.
In the NMC report, Mrs Batchelor said she was “posting horrible stuff on Facebook (and) I was angry because at the time the government was going to take away the elderly TV licence and winter fuel.
” I allowed myself to get caught up in all the uprest in the country. I can not forgive my self[sic] for doing this as all my family are if[sic] black and ethnic minority.
“I find it very difficult to forgive myself for doing this ridiculous thing. I apologised to all my family and friends, also work friends who knew it wasn’t something I would do without a reason.”
She also wished “to be removed from nursing as I don’t feel I should have that privilege”.
The NMC panel considered the order to strike off as “necessary to protect the public and to mark the seriousness of Mrs Batchelor’s misconduct and underpin the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession, and send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse”.
Mrs Batchelor worked her way up from a cleaner to managing a ward. In 2015, she won a ‘pride of nursing’ award in Birmingham.