“Little China girl.” “Paki doctor.” “Black bitch.” These are just some of the racist slurs directed at NHS nurses and doctors as they work on the frontline. I remember feeling sick when I first read an ITV report detailing these incidents at the end of last year. And it was at the front of my mind as I whooped in support of our carers on Thursday night.

I returned to that report last week after posting what I thought was an uncontroversial tweet, noting the fact that all four doctors who had tragically lost their lives to coronavirus at that point were people of colour, and that it was a reminder of how much the NHS relies on BAME and migrant doctors and nurses. Just over four in 10 NHS medical staff are BAME, and almost one in three doctors are not from the UK. From the first Caribbean nurses who arrived after the second world war, the NHS has been built on the backs of both migrant and British workers; in the late 1960s, half of all doctors below consultant level were non-British.

So I was surprised when a prominent broadcaster weighed in to lecture me on the irrelevance of my comment, then simply ignored efforts made to highlight to her the racism experienced by some NHS staff in the line of duty. And I was left pretty shaken by the 48-hour deluge of racist diatribe that ensued, a chunk of which came from her fans and followers.

It was an effective, if painful, reminder of how racism manifests itself: not just in words such as “Paki” but in the self-appointed white gatekeepers who see it as their business to police celebrations of the contributions made, sometimes in the face of appalling racism, by people of colour. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been called a racist simply for acknowledging the ethnicity of the medical professionals who gave their lives to keep us safe.

These anti-immigrant signalling devices are more reflective of a nastiness at the heart of government than society

So it’s worth reiterating why the skin colour of our fallen NHS heroes matters. It’s not just that outright racism and rising levels of Islamophobia affect the wellbeing of NHS workers willingly risking their lives to keep us all safe, it is that, as the General Medical Council has acknowledged, BAME medics face structural racism. And the government’s anti-immigration rhetoric continues to legitimise discrimination at the frontline.

While I was happy to hear health secretary Matt Hancock paying particular thanks to the migrant NHS workers who have lost their lives to coronavirus, years of racist government policy give his words a hollow ring. The 81-year-old Windrush nurse kept out of the UK and separated from her children and grandchildren for nine years after taking a holiday to Jamaica; the “right to rent” policy that requires landlords to perform immigrant status checks that the high court has now ruled racially discriminatory; the punitive NHS levy – £2,200 a year for a family of four – that all migrants, including NHS staff, have to pay on top of the taxes they contribute which already more than cover on average their use of public services.

What’s heartening is that these anti-immigrant signalling devices are more reflective of a nastiness at the heart of government than they are of society in general. There are far fewer people today whose hostility to immigration is driven by racism than there were 10 years ago; rising levels of hate crime are more likely to be a product of racists feeling newly emboldened and legitimised than a significant swelling of their ranks. I hope Hancock’s welcome shift in tone will be matched by a shift in policy: an offer of citizenship to migrant health and care workers in recognition of their extraordinary contribution.

But while racism still exists, it will always remain vital to pay special tribute to the contributions of people of colour. I would encourage my critics to watch this video made last year where surgeon Radhakrishna Shanbag describes how it feels to be asked, “can I have a white doctor to do the operation?” and reflect on why those tributes feel so triggering.

In the meantime, the bullies and gatekeepers will never silence me from saying this: Amged el-Hawrani, Adil El Tayar, Areema Nasreen, Alfa Saadu, Habib Zaidi, you are all heroes, and your sacrifice will not be forgotten. You’ll be in my heart next Thursday evening, and for many Thursdays to come.