Hundreds of overseas doctors, many from Indian sub-continent, demonstrated outside the Department of Health to protest rules forcing them to leave.
LONDON: Hundreds of overseas doctors, many from the Indian sub-continent, demonstrated outside the Department of Health in London on Friday to protest new rules forcing them to leave Britain.
New immigration regulations announced last month mean doctors from outside the European Union will no longer be able to train in Britain without a work permit. The rules could hit up to 20,000 doctors. Around 70 per cent of those affected come from the Indian subcontinent, a traditional recruiting ground for Britain’s state funded National Health Service.
“The new rule is unfair and unjust, and leads to discrimination against doctors who have been the backbone of the NHS since its inception,’’ said Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. Medical trainees work for up to seven years as junior doctors before qualifying as consultants or general practitioners.
Shortages of doctors in the past meant Britain encouraged overseas medics to train in the NHS, but a rise in the number of home-trained medical students has increased competition for suitable training jobs. Mehta said 15,000 of those affected by the change were in the middle of their training. “Many of them have children in school, many have bought houses. Suddenly everything is gone.’’
Hospitals hiring trainee doctors now have to give priority to applicants from the UK and other EU countries. Junior doctors from other countries will only get work permits if it can be shown they have specialist skills unavailable elsewhere. ‘’We’ve been told for some time that we should be more self sufficient in doctors and not suck in doctors from overseas,’’ Health Minister Lord Warner told the BBC.
“There’s been a 70 per cent increase in the number of medical school intakes over the last seven or eight years. We have to ensure there are postgraduate specialist training posts for our own UK graduates.”
The British Medical Association said the work permit change had been introduced without adequate consultation. “These doctors have devoted a huge amount of talent, time, and energy to the NHS, and now face the prospect of enforced departure without any gratitude from the UK,’’ said Dr Edwin Borman, chairman of the BMA’s International Committee.
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