When Loveness Tsitsi Mauwa started her first job in a New South Wales hospital as a nurse, a colleague told her there was what she called a template for career success in the hospital.
"She told me to progress, you have to be young, Caucasian and beautiful. And at that time, it didn't make sense to me," Mauwa, who was born in Zimbabwe and came to Australia on a skilled worker visa, told SBS News.
But as she stayed in the sector for longer, she realised the template existed. In the following decade, Mauwa applied for various opportunities to progress her career, only to find she often didn't make it to the final stage.
"I did put out some applications, and in one of the applications, I was promised I was going to get an opportunity, but that opportunity never came. But everyone else who had applied who met the criteria was able to progress," she said.
Mauwa said the level of racism and discrimination she experienced from colleagues drove her out of working in nursing full-time.
As one of the critical sectors that face a labour shortage, the federal government has been prioritising visas for nurses in the skilled migration system.
Mauwa said that in the two decades she's lived and worked in Australia, she has seen the workforce become more diverse, but barriers still exist.
Two-thirds of nurses and midwives from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in NSW have experienced racism at work, according to a new report by the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association.
Over 3,000 nursing union members were surveyed for the report. 64 per cent said they had experienced direct racism from staff or patients.
The report calls on employers to ensure all staff complete bystander action education. Other recommendations include prioritising the elimination of institutional racism; policies and training on incident reporting; and monitoring the effectiveness of co-designed anti-racism training.
An anti-racism roundtable will now be held to form policies and address systemic racism.
The general secretary at NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association, Shaye Candish, says the union has launched a partnership to ensure progress is made.
"It will be chaired by the Human Rights Commission, and we will have participants from governments, from employers, from the union, from the advocacy groups, from all stakeholders involved in this collaborative," Candish said.
"The reality, unfortunately, is that racism is a perverse problem, and it is a really layered and complex problem. It's going to take a lot of work and commitment from organisations.
"But it's also going to take a collaboration from all of our organisations, because there is no one simple solution, and there is no one organisation that can fix this on their own."
'Racism is making people sick'
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said the report shows racism is a public health emergency that must be dealt with urgently.
"Put simply, racism is making people sick. Racism is stopping people who are sick from getting better, and racism is making people who are sick get worse," he said.
Sivaraman says he launched a National Anti-Racism Framework last year, but hasn't seen governments put it into action.
He said that the nurses' union's report "shows that the recommendations, and our framework, which align completely with the recommendations and their report, need to be implemented".
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman says racism is a public health emergency. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
"When people don't feel safe, they don't feel culturally safe, within our settings, then the health outcomes are also worse," Park said.
"Racism is not just offensive, it can have serious detrimental impacts on people's health and wellbeing — both in terms of our staff, but also just as importantly our patients."
For Mauwa, an important step is eliminating the barriers she says are stopping culturally and linguistically diverse workers from moving up in their careers.
"I think the health system is happy if we (are) just working on the floor, but not wanting to progress into management or senior roles."
