London:
Britain is turning back to Indian doctors as the nation's National Health Service (NHS) is facing acute shortage of junior medicos, posing the first test to the new coalition government's restrictive immigration policy.
The government is being forced to recruit doctors from India and elsewhere, as new rules framed in 2006 preventing doctors from non-European Union to practice in England, has led to acute shortage of medical professionals in the country.
So bad is the situation that some hospitals had to close down specialties and emergency divisions, and this crisis is forcing authorities to recruit from India and elsewhere.
"Many Indian doctors who were training here returned home when immigration rules were tightened in 2006, and media reports in India about the rules stopped many from coming here," an Indian doctor, holding a senior position in the NHS, told PTI.
He said even though some deaneries were now recruiting from India, not many Indian doctors would be interested because immigration rules prevented them from staying for more than two years.
This short period would prevent them from having a career in the NHS, he said.
According to the BBC, the Department of Health recently approached the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), for help to recruit hundreds of junior doctors from India.
The move, however, did not take off due to tight visa norms for non-EU doctors.
Given the acute shortage, the Department of Health is reported to be in favor of relaxing visa norms for Indian and other non-EU doctors, but immigration policy is the domain of the Home Office, which so far has not indicated any
possibility of change.
The Home Office is currently headed by Conservative leaders Theresa May (Home secretary) and Damian Green (Immigration minister).
Both have committed themselves to the coalition agreement's policy of imposing an annual limit on professionals migrating from non-EU countries.
BAPIO had agreed to help the Department of Health, provided the Indian doctors were allowed to stay and get training for between three and four years, rather than the two year limit currently in place.
"The Department of Health said its hands are tied. The problem is at the Home Office. The Department of Health is very much willing to extend this (visa) period, but (they are saying) that the block is at the Home Office," Ramesh Mehta, the president of BAPIO, told the BBC.
"The Department and UKBA (UK Border Agency) worked together to ensure the immigration system struck a balance between providing valuable training opportunities for foreign doctors without preventing UK-trained doctors from progressing in their careers," the Department of Health said in a statement.