An Indian nurse’s first-person anecdote about dealing with a desi family in the UK is going viral on social media, even though doubts have been raised about its authenticity. In a post shared on Reddit, a person claiming to be an Indian nurse in England said she had an unpleasant experience dealing with an Indian family who pretended not to speak English to repeatedly request translation services.
The nurse claimed that the family pretended not to understand her, even though she spoke Hindi and Urdu.
What the ‘Indian nurse’ claimed
The nurse revealed her experience in a Reddit post titled “I'm an Indian nurse working in the NHS in England. I lost my temper with patients from my home country.”
“I've been working in the UK since 2022. I'm fluent in English, Hindi, Urdu and can hold a conversation in Marathi,” she wrote. “3 weeks ago an Indian family of 5 people arrived in the Accident and Emergency department… They pretended not to speak English when 3 of them were instructed to leave by a local nurse, answering in a mix of ‘No understand’ and Hindi.”
The Indian nurse said she stepped in to translate and told the family that three people would have to leave, as only one person can stay with the patient as per hospital policy. When the nurse conveyed this information in Hindi, “the man switched to speaking Urdu.”
{{/usCountry}}The Indian nurse said she stepped in to translate and told the family that three people would have to leave, as only one person can stay with the patient as per hospital policy. When the nurse conveyed this information in Hindi, “the man switched to speaking Urdu.”
{{/usCountry}}The nurse further claimed that she heard the patient and his mother speaking in fluent English — disputing their earlier claims about not being able to speak English.
Requests for translation service
The nurse, in her Reddit post, said that when the Indian family saw the doctor, they “pretended they did not speak English and asked for a translator”.
She explained that setting up a phone translation service costs “significant time and money”.
“I told them in English that I had heard them fluently conversing in English. They then switched to Hindi again, and then Urdu before pretending to not understand me,” the nurse claimed.
At this point, the doctor also informed the patient’s mother that “translation costs the NHS money and they should only request it if they need it.”
“She then insisted on speaking on Hindi once again, and I was able to translate to the doctor. She switched to Urdu, which I was also able to translate. Then she shut down and refused to talk,” the nurse claimed in her Reddit post.
The episode ended with the family filing a complaint against the nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Doubts raised about authenticity
The story has been going viral on Reddit, where many slammed the Indian family for causing unnecessary trouble. However, it soon reached the social media platform X, where doubts were raised about its authenticity.
Many people pointed out that the nurse’s story about switching between Hindi and Urdu sounded untrue as spoken differences between the two languages are minimal.
“Sound fake ! Switch from Hindi to Urdu?! It’s impossible to know. It’s like saying she switched from American English to British English,” wrote one X user.
“Made up post by a seething Brit. Does reddit also give payout or is it just for the love of the game,” another said.
“‘Switch to Hindi then to Urdu then to Hindi then to Urdu…..’ This is so fake and obviously written by a malding t***,” an X user added.
“This sounds suspicious to me. There is really no such thing as switching between Hindi and Urdu as they are mutually intelligible, i.e. essentially the same language. They are written in different scripts and have slight variations in certain vocabulary, that's all,” one person opined.
“There is no way an Indian wrote this - Hindi and Urdu, while being distinct languages while being written - are almost identical when spoken. You can’t switch from speaking Hindi to Urdu - the only thing that would be different is a few words here and there,” another agreed.