Prof. Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu: From humble background to pinnacle of nursing, sickle cell expertise

This year has been an incredible and wonderful year for Professor Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu DBE, CBE, FRCN, PhD.

Nobody would have thought that her life would turn out so well with her humble background and difficulties she faced early in life.

Elizabeth, who celebrated her 70th birthday recently, was born on July 2, 1947. A British-born nurse, health expert, tutor, lecturer and medical professor of Irish and Nigerian descent, recently published her memoirs, “Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union.”

This has been an incredibly moving book. Many people would be extremely surprised to discover that Elizabeth spent her first nine years of life in Birmingham Children’s Homes being run by Catholic nuns. Her parents, Irish woman, Mary Furlong and Lawrence Odiatu Victor Anionwu met as students at Cambridge but never married.

Furlong was brilliant and excelled academically, obtaining a scholarship to Cambridge to study classics. Furlong was in her second year when she became pregnant by Nigerian law student, Lawrence Odiatu Victor Anionwu.

Furlong’s devout Catholic family were horrified and this was further compounded when it was discovered that the baby was a mixed race. She decided to leave Cambridge and look for a job in order to provide for her daughter, Elizabeth and herself.

Anionwu’s upbringing was 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 didn’t accept her and drank heavily, attacked her.

Often being 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 her autobiography, 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”.

She also remembers sobbing her heart out on the bus when she had to leave the convent to go and live with her mother. Every period of relative stability in childhood ended in sudden collapse.

After her unsettled childhood and estrangement from her father, it was at 24 that Elizabeth learnt that her father was a Nigerian called  Lawrence  Odiatu Victor Anionwu, who had studied Law at Trinity Hall Cambridge before being called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in London.  In 1963 he became the first Nigerian Ambassador to Italy and the Vatican.
At the age of 24 in 1963 Elizabeth suddenly found him in London and subsequently visited Nigeria many times to meet her large extended family. For many years, Elizabeth also teamed up with Professor Olu Akinyanju, founder of the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria in teaching sickle cell courses in Lagos.

Anionwu has credited her father, a barrister and diplomat, as a career inspiration. She began her nursing career at a very young age after being inspired by a nun who cared for her eczema.

At the age of 16, she started to work as a school nurse assistant in Wolverhampton. Later on, she continued with her education to become a nurse, health visitor and tutor. She is ultimately thankful that her father pushed her to pursue and progress more in her career.

She also travelled to the United States to study counselling for sickle cell and thalassemia.   Thalassemia centres and courses were not available in the United Kingdom. In 1979 she worked with Dr Brozovic to create the first UK Sickle Cell and Thalassemia counselling centre in Brent.

The opening of this counselling centre pioneered the opening of over 30 centres in the UK using the Brent location as a basis. In 1990 at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, she advanced academically to a lecturer and then later to a senior lecturer.

With the help of Professor Marcus Pembrey, Anionwu taught a course at the University College London that was for NHS staff members who worked with communities affected or at risk of sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis. She then became the Dean of the School of Adult Nursing Studies and a Professor of Nursing at University of West London. She eventually created the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice at University of West London. She was the Head/Vice Chairperson until her retirement in 2007.

In 2001, Anionwu, along with Professor Atkin, wrote the book: “The Politics of Sickle Cell and Thalassemia”. Then in 2005 she wrote a book called:”A Short History of Mary Seacole”.

Anionwu’s career as a nurse, health visitor and tutor led her to become the first  UK Sickle Cell specialist nurse counsellor and then a Professor of Nursing . In retirement she became an Emeritus Professor at the University of West London as well as Vice Chairperson of the successful Mary Seacole Statue Appeal. Anionwu is a member and patron of multiple committees: Sickle Cell Society; Nigerian Nurses Charitable Association UK; Vice President of Unite/Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association; Editorial Advisory Board of Nursing Standard; NHS Sickle Cell & Thalassemia Screening Programme Steering Group; Honorary Advisor to the Chief Nursing Officer’s Black & Minority Ethnic Advisory Group and Life Patron of The Mary Seacole Trust.

Since her retirement, Anionwu remained active in the nursing community and overlooks many projects. In  the course of her career, she has published many pieces of works. She has written and published a memoir called “Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union” (2016). She has also published works related to her field of work and study in many journals.

She has written informative pamphlets for family members of a sickle cell patient, nurses who care for sickle cell patients, and information for the general population. In 2004, she was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing (FRCN) for developing the sickle cell and thalassemia counselling centre.

In 2010 she was inducted into the Nursing Times Nursing Hall of Fame for the dedication to the Development of Nurse-led Services. She also received the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award on Divas of Colour.

Anionwu was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to nursing and the Mary Seacole Statue Appeal. In February, she visited Buckingham Palace with her family to receive the award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The poignant, inspirational and humorous autobiography of Elizabeth, who is a proud mother and grandmother, was launched in October 2016 and has already received over 50 five-star reviews.