Posted on 12/26/2007 5:54:20 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The scale of the influx of foreign doctors and nurses into the British health service has been disclosed as figures show nearly 190,000 doctors and nurses have come to the country from outside the EU in just eight years.
Nearly 16,000 nurses from Zimbabwe were given permits to work in the past eight years, including 1,600 last year.
MPs said that Government figures showed health service chiefs were "bleeding" African countries dry of their medical professionals.
Yet since 2005, Zimbabwe and other developing countries have been on a list of countries from which health chiefs are not allowed to recruit.
The figures obtained by James Clappison, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere, showed that the Home Office gave work permits to 22,090 doctors and 165,780 nurses from non-EU countries between 1999 and 2006.
The Department of Health confirmed that 101,329 extra doctors and nurses had joined the NHS over the same period.
Of the non-EU figure, at least 64,000 doctors and nurses came from African countries, increasing from 2,600 in 1999 to 17,620 last year.
Mr Clappison said this went against the spirit of a code of practice, signed up to by NHS employers in March 2005, that states: "Developing countries should not be targeted when recruiting healthcare professionals."
In 2006 - a year after the code was agreed - the Home Office gave work permits to 4,615 nurses and 650 doctors from African countries.
The figures show that since 1999, Britain has given work permits to 15,705 Zimbabwean nurses and 8,505 Nigerian nurses, including 1,610 and 600 respectively last year.
Mr Clappison said: "The scale of recruitment is striking. It seems that the Government failed to follow its own undertaking.
"It seems like we are bleeding certain countries dry of their nurses."
The DoH said that while NHS trusts are banned from actively trying to enlist from Africa, there is little to stop doctors and nurses applying for work permits to come to Britain.
A spokesman for the DoH said: "We do not actively recruit from countries that cannot afford to lose staff.
"We are the only developed country to implement policies that prevent targeting developing countries in the international recruitment of healthcare professionals."
Junior doctors hoping to become surgeons will face competition from at least 19 other candidates for every post next year, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
Doctors have been warned that competition for training posts will be even tougher after judges ruled that British graduates cannot be given priority over candidates from outside Europe.
In next year's recruitment process there are expected to be three candidates for every post but the situation will be worse in surgery.
For the most popular specialities, there will be at least 20 applicants for each place - double the number this year.
Prospective heart surgeons are likely to face the strongest competition.
This year there were 53 applicants for every middle-ranking training post in
cardio-thoracic surgery and 14 candidates for each place in cardiology.
The Government's shake-up of medical training collapsed in chaos in May after allegations of unfairness, computer security breaches and an unexpectedly high number of applications from foreign doctors.
This year there were 15,600 training places available and about 29,000 applicants. Next year there will be about 9,000 posts with the same number of candidates.
A letter to junior doctors from Bernard Ribeiro, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, warned: "These competition ratios will mean a lot of very capable doctors will be frozen out of training.
"There is the potential to severely hamper fair play. The proposed arrangements risk damaging and indeed ending the careers of some of our best junior doctors."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The number of training places available
for 2008 is lower than 2007 because around 10,000 junior doctors are already in 'run-through' training places that guarantee them a place on
the next rung of the training ladder.
"That is good news for those junior doctors, but it means fewer places are available next year."
Ahah! So this is how they afford national health care over there.
MPs said that Government figures showed health service chiefs were "bleeding" African countries dry of their medical professionals.
Yet since 2005, Zimbabwe and other developing countries have been on a list of countries from which health chiefs are not allowed to recruit.
Yeah, let those Zimbabwean nurses work for rocks in Mugabe's hell-hole!
bookamrk
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