The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared 2020 the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife” last year, to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. In a historical satire however, coronavirus has exposed the glaring loop holes that plague the UK’s healthcare system. NHS is at a breaking point and is in dire need of nurses, doctors and midwives.
This was further substantiated by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in September last year as it warned of an “emerging crisis in nursing” with concerns about record shortages in the number of nurses and low morale among them. The NHS is presently short of 40,000 nurses and researchers are pressing for a review of the 12-hour shifts of all nurses to ensure their physical, mental and emotional well-being are intact. According to Health Foundation that shortfall is expected to reach 100,000 in a decade.
Professional medical bodies have insisted that the UK does not presently have the resources to rely on domestic nursing staff alone and organisations such as the BAPIO are therefore, training and bringing in nurses from other Commonwealth countries including India and Philippines. Yet, British Home Secretary Priti Patel is firm that the UK must level up and invest in upskilling their domestic talents as opposed to relying on skilled labour from India to combat the shortages that the NHS is facing. BAPIO has recently launched a support network facilitating 25,000-30,000 nurses from India who are presently serving the NHS. British Indian Nurses Association (BINA) is providing them with all the necessary training, guidelines of the NHS and making them aware of the GMC regulations besides helping them navigate the cultural and linguistic barriers they may face in their career progression. But the NHS is not just in need of the Indian nurses.
Leading organisations such as the BMA have also warned that Indian-origin doctors are choosing to migrate to other countries such as Australia, Canada and now even the UAE where immigration norms are far more relaxed. The immigration and visa regulations in the UK currently don’t allow Indian-origin medics to bring their families as their dependents to the UK.
In an interview with Asian Voice, earlier, Dr. Preeti said, “I don’t understand government’s logic about declining elderly parents to stay - they are not a burden to society as we pay our taxes and are clear that we won’t need social services support in their case, their family will look after them.”
Indian-origin medics are the backbone of the NHS and the UK needs to understand that it cannot afford to take them for granted.
