A British healthcare company is hiring doctors from Nigeria with the expectation that they will operate in private hospitals; under circumstances that are not permitted by the National Health Service. The situation has been called “shocking” by the British Medical Association (BMA), who also asserts that the sector needs to be brought in line with NHS working procedures.
However, the Department of Health and Social Care informed us that NES was in violation of the UK code of practice; because it did in fact apply to them.
Several African doctors who had been hired by NES in this manner spoke to the BBC. According to Dr. Jenny Vaughan of the Doctors’ Association, “This is slave-type labor.”
NHS doctors can only be scheduled to work up to 48 hours per week, or 72 hours per week if they so choose. It was discovered that 81% of those hired had come from Nigeria and that 92% had come from Africa. The bulk of complaints were to unjustified compensation deductions and excessive working hours.