Thread: Great Britain is bleeding Africa dry of its doctors

The vicious and hypocritical face of immigration. The economy which drains 180.000 health specialists only from Africa during 8 years must be really sick.

Health chiefs are bleeding Africa dry, say MPs

By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:04am GMT 27/12/2007

MPs said that Government figures showed health service chiefs were "bleeding" African countries dry of their medical professionals.
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Nearly 16,000 nurses from Zimbabwe were given permits to work in the past eight years, including 1,600 last year.

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."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... nhs127.xml

Hi Lugundum

Christopher Hope needs to get the story straight. The exodus of people from Zimbabwe is an ongoing evacuation of people fleeing President Mugabee. You're not gonna find refugees praising Mugabee and Zimbabwee like the illegals that come here [praising Mexico] do. Zimbabwee could have become the most powerful economy in Africa, but, thanks to Mugabee, the opposite is true.

Not correct to infer that Mexicans coming here are to be regarded as Zimbabweens fleeing to ZA. Mexico is sending its criminals to us, Zimbabweens are fleeing for their lives. Mexicans have a choice (they can stay home), Zimbabweens choice is to stay alive and get the hell out. Mexico is not (not yet) killing its citizens and forcing them out.

Originally Posted by The Sydney Morning Herald

]Up to 70 per cent of Zimbabwe's workers, about 3.4 million people, has fled the country to escape the political oppression and collapsing economy under President Robert Mugabe's rule, according to research by an independent church group.

The South African-based Solidarity Peace Trust said that most of the workers had crossed the borders into neighbouring countries, with an estimated 1.5 million skilled and able-bodied workers arriving in South Africa to seek work to support families left behind in Zimbabwe.

"An estimated 25 to 30 per cent of the entire Zimbabwean population has left the nation," the Peace Trust reported.

"Out of 5 million potentially productive adults, 3.4 million are outside Zimbabwe. This is a staggering 60 to 70 per cent of productive adults."

Zimbabwe's economy is in its most dire crisis since independence in 1980.

Unemployment remains at about 70 per cent, inflation persists in three figures and the United Nations has warned that the country will again face severe food shortages caused mainly by the Government's ill-planned and violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms, which has wrecked a once-thriving agricultural sector.

Political repression and the heavy-handed suppression of any opposition to the Mugabe Government by the authorities have added to the country's economic woes and forced many professional and skilled people to leave by any route they can find.

"The loss of skills has impacted on the health and education services in Zimbabwe," the Peace Trust report said. "Many professionals such as teachers, nurses, policemen and artisans have been driven out by political events and are living like vagrants in South Africa."

Kevin Dowling, the Roman Catholic bishop of Rustenburg, north-west of Johannesburg, said he feared that the exodus would increase before the next general election, in March.

"The climate of oppression could be ratcheted up with impunity, and there is a good chance we in South Africa will have to receive yet more refugees," he said.

The report urges the South African Government to make it easier for Zimbabwean asylum seekers to find work in the country to avoid a worsening humanitarian crisis.  Mr Mugabe has said his ruling ZANU-PF party wants to pick a woman as co-vice-president, paving the way for the first woman in the country's top three government positions, the state-supporting Sunday Mail reported.

It said the decision was reached at an emergency meeting of ZANU-PF's supreme decision-making politburo on Thursday.

President Mugabee

Hello Coto,

I have posted this article because it perfectly illustrates the hypocrisy of our elites. On one hand they are always talking about necessity of helping to the third world and on the other hand they do not hesitate to steal their last specialists in the health service. Particularly in case of Zimbabwe refugees this could be a question of life and death for many people.

Concerning the difference between Mexican illegal immigration and Zimbabwe exodus I do agree with you. However I think the main point of the article is one particular "failure" or rather a trait of our economical system - that the UK steals specialists from poor and very poor countries.

I know that all people frequenting this discussion board are very familiar with the impacts of insane immigration. However, even though we have already got used to various unbelievable news concerning immigration and its impact I consider the news that the UK has stolen 180.000 sisters/doctors only from Africa (they are looting them also in Asia/Eastern Europe) in the time period shorter than 10 years as particularly abysmal and unbelievable.

Where we are? This couldn't work! Besides that enormous numbers of doctors they are importing from the whole world their NHS (National Health/Hospital System) is so bad that they have got deadly outbreaks of various bugs in many hospitals and people are using industrial glue to fix their teeth because they are unable to find a dentist for a professional assistance.

This is our world and our future?

Originally Posted by Lugundum

Hello Coto,

I have posted this article because it perfectly illustrates the hypocrisy of our elites. On one hand they are always talking about necessity of helping to the third world and on the other hand they do not hesitate to steal their last specialists in the health service. Particularly in case of Zimbabwe refugees this could be a question of life and death for many people.

Concerning the difference between Mexican illegal immigration and Zimbabwe exodus I do agree with you. However I think the main point of the article is one particular "failure" or rather a trait of our economical system - that the UK steals specialists from poor and very poor countries.

I know that all people frequenting this discussion board are very familiar with the impacts of insane immigration. However, even though we have already got used to various unbelievable news concerning immigration and its impact I consider the news that the UK has stolen 180.000 sisters/doctors only from Africa (they are looting them also in Asia/Eastern Europe) in the time period shorter than 10 years as particularly abysmal and unbelievable.

Where we are? This couldn't work! Besides that enormous numbers of doctors they are importing from the whole world their NHS (National Health/Hospital System) is so bad that they have got deadly outbreaks of various bugs in many hospitals and people are using industrial glue to fix their teeth because they are unable to find a dentist for a professional assistance.

This is our world and our future?

Herein lies the problem. The UK is not 'stealing' them.

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.

They are going to the UK (and probably just about anywhere else) on their own. I am not sure how your force someone to stay in a situation like Zimbabwe. People may think they are wrong for leaving, but if they stay they will probably end up dead. This way maybe they can return to their home country at some point in the future if things stabilize.

Camille, when you are poor worker from Zimbabwe with income of 1-2$/day you usually flee only to the countries in neighborhood.

Yes it is forbidden to actively enlist Africa's health personal but somehow happened that 180.000 of them ended in the UK. I'm also sure that your businesses in the USA aren't actively enlisting Mexican illegals but somehow happens that you have 20.000.000 of them in your country whilst having laws on book against illegal immigration in the same moment.

This is the reason I'm talking about hypocrisy of our common elites.

Originally Posted by camilleinchicago

Originally Posted by Lugundum

Hello Coto,

I have posted this article because it perfectly illustrates the hypocrisy of our elites. On one hand they are always talking about necessity of helping to the third world and on the other hand they do not hesitate to steal their last specialists in the health service. Particularly in case of Zimbabwe refugees this could be a question of life and death for many people.

Concerning the difference between Mexican illegal immigration and Zimbabwe exodus I do agree with you. However I think the main point of the article is one particular "failure" or rather a trait of our economical system - that the UK steals specialists from poor and very poor countries.

I know that all people frequenting this discussion board are very familiar with the impacts of insane immigration. However, even though we have already got used to various unbelievable news concerning immigration and its impact I consider the news that the UK has stolen 180.000 sisters/doctors only from Africa (they are looting them also in Asia/Eastern Europe) in the time period shorter than 10 years as particularly abysmal and unbelievable.

Where we are? This couldn't work! Besides that enormous numbers of doctors they are importing from the whole world their NHS (National Health/Hospital System) is so bad that they have got deadly outbreaks of various bugs in many hospitals and people are using industrial glue to fix their teeth because they are unable to find a dentist for a professional assistance.

This is our world and our future?

Herein lies the problem. The UK is not 'stealing' them.

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.

They are going to the UK (and probably just about anywhere else) on their own. I am not sure how your force someone to stay in a situation like Zimbabwe. People may think they are wrong for leaving, but if they stay they will probably end up dead. This way maybe they can return to their home country at some point in the future if things stabilize.

Hi Lugundum and camilleinchicago,

One thing I failed to mention. Under Hillary's health care plan (Hillarycare), we may be in the same situation as the UK.

The US is importing RN's - quite a few of them.

Why aren't we simply creating, or educating, our own RN's?

There was an article in either Newsweek, Time, or one of those news magazines about Americans who have to go out of the country, these went to St. Kits, to nursing schools because there weren't enough schools in this country.

So why is that?

I think this importation of doctors, nurses, and teachers, rather than educating our own, is simply part of the plan to completely destroy the unique culture of each nation and to drive down the wages of professionals.

Under the Clinton's, they discussed the fact that America had too many doctors and they were considering paying medical schools the equivalent of the tuition to NOT produce doctors.

Insanity.