The eight doctors come from several countries of the former British empire: Egypt, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Sudan. The Reuters agency quotes a relative of Dr. Adil el-Tayar, one of the deceased doctors, saying: “When people were on the street applauding the NHS workers, I thought: ‘A year and a half ago, they were talking about Brexit and how these immigrants came here to take the our jobs “. Another doctor, Dr. el-Khidir, is quoted as saying: “Today it is these same immigrants who are trying to do the job with the natives and are on the front line of dying.”
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Experts who have commented on the evolution of the pandemic predict that, in the event of a prolongation of the crisis, the current shortage of ventilators will start to give rise to a shortage of medical and nursing staff, as they become ill due to a very high exposure to the risk.
The NHS has largely recruited doctors from the former British empire, who today make up about a third of its staff. However, this proportion does not correspond to that of dead immigrant doctors – 100 percent. The fact is explained by the fact that immigrant doctors focused on the so-called “Cinderella specialties”, the least sought after by clinicians with ambitions and career prospects.
According to quote from Aneez Esmail, professor of general practice at the University of Manchester, “immigrant doctors are architects of the NHS – they are the ones who built it, who kept it standing and worked in the most difficult and unpopular areas, those where British doctors whites don’t want to go to work. This is an unknown story “.
Despite their first-rate role in the NHS, immigrant doctors have to pay thousands of pounds a year and, in addition, an annual fee of £ 500 to access the service they work for.
Even so, they are attracted to the United Kingdom with wages higher than they would earn in the countries of origin. They arrive trained and prepared to work, and Her Majesty’s State saves the £ 270,000 it spends, on average, on training each of its doctors.
When the pandemic begins to be felt in India, Egypt or Pakistan, the absorption of doctors trained there by the old metropolis will be felt more acutely in those countries of origin. And the investment made by these countries in the training of their own doctors will be without return at the decisive moment.
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