The UK has stopped “active recruitment” of skilled and experienced health and social care personnel from Nigeria and from 53 other African countries globally.
In its updated ‘Code of Practice for the international recruitment of Health and social care personnel in England’, the UK placed Nigeria and the other countries on its red list which was based on the World Health Organisation Workforce Support and Safeguard List, 2023.
The list of countries are as follows: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, and Lesotho.
The other countries include Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mozambique, Niger, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Tanzania, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
“There must be no active international recruitment from countries on the red list, unless there is an explicit government-to-government agreement to support managed recruitment activities that are undertaken strictly in compliance with the terms of that agreement,” the UK said in its updated policy on social and health workers released in March 2023.
The British Government, however, said the list doesn’t prevent individual health and social care personnel from independently applying to health and social care employers for employment in the UK, “of their own accord and without being targeted by a third party, such as a recruitment agency or employer (known as a direct application)”.
The House of Representatives recently passed for second reading, the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to compel Nigerian-trained doctors, nurses and other health workers from emigrating the country to work in Europe and other parts of the world till they have served the country for five years.
After the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 the number of emigrating Nigerian health workers to the UK rose considerably.
The mass exodus from Nigeria is not unconnected to the government’s unwillingness to create a conducive environment for health personnel to thrive. Incessant industrial actions over the years have disrupted the health sector and stunted growth generally.
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