Retraining refugee Drs

[noxlumos]

With the cost of training a Dr from scratch estimated at �250,000 and the cost for retraining a Dr from a non EU country set at about �10,000, should we not be welcoming Drs and other highly trained refugees into our country instead of believeing that the word refugee automatically equals people who will claim benefits, commit crime and be a general nuisance and tax on society? Your thoughts please?

[campbellking]

By all means employ them as doctors if they are able to show competence and a good understanding of the English language. One of our recent foreign doctors who was employed as a locum was not even able to remember the word for 'the fingers on the feet', and he was employed at consultant level. Some of his medical practices left a lot to be desired, and his registrar ( a highly skilled Asian doctor) was frequently left to rectify his mistakes.

[Booldawg]

send all our would-be-professionals overseas to get trained -if that's the cheapest way.

[jno]

I think we were until recently... then the government said they were cracking down because local doctors were having trouble finding work. Well, there's work in my street (in a desirably green middle-class area), but nobody's replaced my GP since she retired 3 years ago; now I can't get an appointment in less than a week, at a surgery twice as far away. So I don't trust the government's argument, and I suspect they're just reacting to tabloid drivel about refugees in the way you mention.

[Ms.Hijinx]

Brilliant idea but you would alays get some dogooder moaning that we were not treating all refugees equally and singling out only highly educated ones to train, I am getting quite sick of a government that wants to live in exhausted mediocrity and sits on the fence about everything

[Dom Tuk]

If the person satisfies the criteria to qualify as a refugee (ie persecution on the grounds of race, religion, social group etc, the criteria set by the Geneva convention) then yes employ him and give him refugee status. if he does not satisfy the rules then he is nothing but an economic migrant who is trying to circumvent our immigration system by making a bogus claim. Why should he then get a march over thousands of other doctors who stick to the rules to gain employment in the UK?. A person who can lie about his claim for asylum is not trustworthy to be a doctor in the UK (ie if his claim for persecution is unfounded).

[sandbach99]

As campbellking says as long as the doctor can be understood by all his patients ie young, old deaf/hard of hearing etc, and that the doctor can understand the dialect and local words for the area he wants to live in.
The �10,000 retraining costs do not take into account of any costs that may be incurred if the doctor has school age children ie the cost of educating the children or nhs costs for children or partner or other extended family.
These re-trained doctors must be competent to British standards and made to sign a contract committing them solely to the NHS for a period of years rather than re-training them only for them to go into private practice after a few months or years.

[qapmoc]

That sounds like a really nice idea for a highly developed rich nation like the UK which can after all afford to pay for the medical staff it needs, to consider taking badly needed staff from poor countries which find it a great hardship to pay for training medical staff to look after their poor and starving citizens.
Do you realize that many ''third world'' health systems are already collapsing due to lack of trained staff without the additional stress of rich countries deliberately trying to take away the only people who might make a big difference to millions of sick people.

[JudgeJ]

Same views as in the �Asylum Seeker� question posed by funkymoped, noxlumus. Why import people from elsewhere when we have (at least) a million people unemployed here? It may seem cheaper on the face of it, but the long term cost of keeping people unemployed far exceeds the �240k you reckon we can save training a doctor. Furthermore, what will become of the people who might have been trained as doctors here, only to be prevented from doing so because the training opportunities are cut down. I suppose they could always become seasonal fruit pickers! Manage the resources we already have (and which are costing money) before we import any from elsewhere.

[Oneeyedvic]

JudgeJ - "Why import people from elsewhere when we have (at least) a million people unemployed here?"

Are you serious? You really think that the million unemployed people should (or even could) be trained to be doctors?

I'm just guessing here, but I would assume that a high percentage of unemployed people haven't even finished school - but somehow you think they are intelligent enough to be doctors?

And despite thte fact that we don't have enough doctors, you feel that if we import them, suddenly all the English doctors will become fruit pickers?

Without trying to sound disrespectful, this site continues to amaze me with some people's opinions.

[JudgeJ]

You have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, Oneeyedvic, and this may well be my fault for not saying what I meant properly. (It is often difficult to do so in 1700 characters).

I am not suggesting that the one million unemployed could all be trained as doctors. What I am suggesting is that they might become employed in some capacity, thus enabling people doing (for example, but not necessarily) fruit picking but who are capable of more skilled or intellectual work, to move up a rung.

The million people to whom I refer (I think the actual number is about 985k) are those drawing Jobseekers� Allowance. They are thus available for and should be actively seeking work. They are not in full time education or anything else which prevents them from working.

I did not suggest that all the doctors here would suddenly become fruit pickers. What I was suggesting is that if we cut down the places for trainee doctors (because we are importing ready trained ones) a number of young people here who may have wanted to train as doctors will have to find themselves other careers.

My earlier post was made with an element of tongue in cheek and the examples were not meant to be exhaustive. But it has a serious point and that is all about managing resources. This country currently has 1m people unemployed, many of whom will be allowed (and will be quite happy) to languish on benefits for most of their lives. Meantime we are being asked to believe that we must bring people from other countries to carry out tasks in order �to keep us afloat�, whilst continuing to pay people to do nothing. It does not make sense, and I�m amazed that you�re amazed!