Cristina Navarrete

Cristina Navarrete was born in Chile in 1952 and came to London in 1976. She explains how the support she received meant she could use her training and skills from Chile. She is now very senior in the National Health Service.

Listen to Cristina (mp3, 1mb)

Transcript

'When I was in prison, I received the offer of a job. One of the ways in which the solidarity movement was helping the political prisoners was to try to get them offers of jobs, with the hope that that would allow you get your visa and allow you to be released from prison, anything would help. And I had an offer to come here and work as a technician in the laboratory of a very eminent haematologist.

'Unfortunately they had been waiting for me for a few months, and when I arrived they wanted me to start straight away, but I was asked to go to the United Nations to this commission, that was about to delay the thing for about another two weeks, plus I had to do some medical check ups and interviews with lots of people. So I couldn’t start and they said unfortunately we cannot continue keeping the job. And I understood very well, to be honest they were very, very nice. 

'Then I heard that there was a medical doctor who had been working in the same place that I had been working doing my thesis in Chile, who was here… So I went to see her and so she sort of gave me an interview. And she said what did I do, where did work? And she left the room, went to see the director of the transfusion service, and in ten minutes she said "I’ve got a job for you, is maternity replacement for somebody who has gone in maternity leave, but I know what you know, I know what you do", because she used to work there, "so I know if you were employed doing that, I know you can do that".

'So within three days I had another job, so I started working there as a junior technician B in a department of immunology, which is something I wanted to do anyway. I did that for six months until the other lady came back from maternity leave. By that time there was another replacement in another department, microbiology. And then when that finished, she had a position in her own department and they offered me to go and work there. 

'So I was working in all these departments while I was doing my revalidation of my degree. So I did that and I had my revalidation then I realised that the education that I had had in Chile was very good, that in spite of the language barriers and the technology issues I felt that I could competently deliver what I was being asked to do and perhaps more. I was not using all the knowledge I had been given and the training I had been given. But for me in order to progress I needed to continue studying.'

Copyright Evelyn Oldfield Unit