Revoke New Rules for Overseas Doctors in UK

Update: June 6, 2006

The online petition helped our protest movement a lot and attracted lots of attention. More than 5000 people signed the petition and it was submitted to the Department of Health. We are still awaiting the final result of our protest movement.

March 19, 2006

This petition has been started by Overseas Doctors Working in UK to appeal against the new unjust rules imposed on them by the United Kingdom authorities.

This online petition will be submitted to the Secretary of State for Health by April 15th, 2006 and complements the peaceful protest march scheduled to be held by overseas doctors in London as well as the paper petition being collected by various overseas doctors associations.

Ever since the inception of the National Health Service in UK, Overseas Doctors/ International Medical Graduates (IMGS) have contributed to it by their hard work and dedication. They filled a hard felt need for skilled doctors to provide the British public with quality health care. They came here as they were promised quality training and Equal Opportunities in job selection.

Now, the UK government has introduced new regulations effective from July 2006, which has effectively curtailed all training arrangements for overseas doctors in one go. Instead of Permit Free training, they will be required to have work permit for any post they apply.

Also, employers will have the right to preferentially employ UK/EU graduates in favour of non-EU doctors, irrespective of skills or qualification and irrespective of visa status. This effectively ends the Equal Opportunities policy and favours discrimination.

This policy was announced without any consultation or grace period and has left thousands of IMGs high and dry. While some form of manpower planning was definitely required in view of the job crisis facing junior doctors, the precipitate manner in which this has been done is highly objectionable. The implications are far reaching. These include:

·New doctors who have invested time and money to come to UK, believing the promise of Equal Opportunities find that their career is ruined.

·For those already here, they will have to stop their training here halfway and go out of UK or try for non-training posts, with no career progression.

·Those who are finishing their training will find that all their training and qualifications do not matter in job selection and they will never use their hard earned skills at Consultant level.

This petition is addressed to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Health requesting her to give this matter her urgent attention.

We request Ms. Hewitt to make an urgent solution to the immense disruption to career, personal and family life which overseas doctors are facing as a result of these new rules. Many of these doctors have been working hard in the NHS and serving the British public for several years.

This petition appeals to the good sense of the authorities to :

·Repeal these unjust rules.
·Reintroduce the Equal Opportunities Policy in medical job selection and end discrimination based on country of origin.
·Start a process of consultation for finalising a consensus.