The Brain Drain

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Paul Kenyon investigates the ‘brain drain’ of doctors from developing countries to work in the UK. The large scale recruitment of foreign doctors from nations with the greatest need to retain their medical personnel is increasing on a massive scale. What’s more, thousands of doctors are being targeted despite guidance which says recruitment from developing countries should not happen. It is though - because the UK trains too few doctors and nurses and needs these staff to plug the gaps. There are also big concerns about how many of the doctors flown into the UK are expected to work extremely long hours which they say is putting patient safety at risk.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So we're close guys.
0:06.0	This is a far-life, you really, really tend to be like, oh, God, I'm coming back to this
0:11.8	prison again.
0:12.8	Because it was a prison to be like, too, but...
0:16.4	Augustine Ennequetchi is a Nigerian doctor.
0:19.8	He came to the UK two years ago to save lives and progress his career.
0:25.2	Today, he's taking me to a hospital in the UK that he says almost root him.
0:32.2	You're listening to assignment on the BBC World Service with me Paul Kenyon.
0:37.2	That's my room over there. I can see my room. I can see the curtains open.
0:41.2	Here's all deal is over, but he suspects others will be suffering just like he did.
0:47.2	So how do you feel when you look back at this place now?
0:50.2	I feel free. I just feel privileged to be out of this hospital
0:54.2	because normally I would be confined here for seven days and trust me's health.
0:59.2	He was employed by a private company called NES Healthcare and then hired out to private hospitals.
1:06.2	He says he faced excessive working hours without employment safeguards,
1:11.2	enjoyed by doctors in Britain's National Health Service.
1:15.2	Even more worrying, he says there were times when he thought he might be putting patients at risk.
1:21.2	And neither working tired, put the patients at risk and put myself at risk as well for the litigation and all the things.
1:30.2	So I was really really worried.
1:33.2	I felt powerless, I felt helpless, you know, constant stress and thinking of something could go wrong.
1:41.2	So how did he and so many others end up being treated like this?
1:46.2	The BBC has been investigating the story for months.
	...

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