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."
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