Some days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) tweaked the Health Workforce Support and Safeguard list, the United Kingdom has also revised its policy on recruitment of health workers from overseas.
The code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel in England, recently updated, has Nigeria returned to the red list countries, which means, “no active recruitment is permitted”. By the updated WHO’s workforce safeguard list, and now adopted by the UK government, Nigeria and the likes of Benin, Cameroun, Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and 47 others – mostly African countries – are now in the no recruitment list.
According to the UK Home Office, “If a government-to-government agreement is put in place between the UK and a partner country, it will restrict UK employers, contracting bodies, recruitment organisations, agencies and collaborations to the terms of the agreement. The country will be added to the amber list and recruitment can happen only on the terms of the agreement . Changes to the red and amber country list may be made on an ad hoc basis as government-to-government agreements are signed. All agreements will take WHO guidance on the development of bilateral agreements into account.
It is recommended that employers, recruitment organisations, agencies, collaborations and contracting bodies check the red and amber country list for updates before any recruitment drive.”
This is coming after a bill seeking to mandate Nigerian-trained medical and dental practitioners to practice for a minimum of five years in the country, before being granted a full licence, on Thursday, last week, passed second reading at the House of Representatives
