Indian docs in UK get temporary relief from immigration laws

In a temporary relief to the beleaguered Indian doctors, Britain has decided to keep the new immigration laws in abeyance for the first round of recruitment this year in the National Health Service.

In a temporary relief to the beleaguered Indian doctors, Britain has decided to keep the new immigration laws in abeyance for the first round of recruitment this year in the National Health Service.

The guideline issued by the Health Department on the website for recruitment to training posts said “Doctors with limited leave to enter/remain in the UK in immigration categories that allow them to work will be considered for short-listing in round 1 if their leave is current at August 1.”

From January 22 to February 4, more than 30,000 doctors applied for the 21,000 jobs with the National Health Service. Of them about 12,000 applicants are Indians.

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A list of candidates will be released on Monday and interviews will take place in the first week of March. Since the new immigration rules were announced in April 2006, under which the employer has to prove that they had no appropriate candidates from the UK and EU before offering it to the non-EU candidate, an estimated 5,000 Indian doctors have returned to their home country as they have little prospect of getting a job here.

According to the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), which had challenged the decision in the High Court unsuccessfully, thousands more would have been forced to leave by August if the “discriminatory” rules were implemented.

Welcoming the latest decision of the Health department, BAPIO on Sunday said, “The new regulations will help treat all doctors equally and the shortlisting will be based on merit rather than nationality.”

“We are happy that the Department of Health has responded sensibly. We expect that all doctors will be treated equally and on merit rather than nationality,” Ramesh Mehta, BAPIO President said.

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BAPIO, one of the two petitioners seeking judicial review of the April 2006 immigration guidelines applicable to non-EU doctors, has asked its solicitors to file an appeal against the High Court judgement that disallowed a judicial review of the guidelines. Subsequently, BAPIO wrote to the Department of Health asking it to continue to keep the new rules in abeyance as it was appealing against the February 9 verdict.

Raman Lakshman, Vice-chair for Policy for BAPIO, claimed it would not have happened if the international medical graduate community had quietly accepted the new rules when they were announced in March, 2006.

He said the “U-turn by the Department of Health is due to the sustained campaign of BAPIO supported by thousands of international medical graduates”. “This is a victory for merit and fairness,” said Satheesh Mathew, Vice Chair BAPIO (Operations).

Meanwhile, the British Medical Association has expressed its disappointment over the High Court verdict.