‘Japa’ Nigerian doctors complain of enslavement in UK
Nigerian doctors recruited to work in hospitals in the UK have complained about their being exploited and enslaved.
BBC says its investigation showed that doctors from Nigeria are expected to work in private hospitals under conditions not allowed in the National Health Service.
One of the affected doctors, Augustine Enekwechi, says he is on-call 24 hours a day for a week at a time and that he was unable to leave the hospital grounds.
He says working there felt like being in “a prison”.
“I knew that working tired puts the patients at risk and puts myself also at risk, as well for litigation.
“I felt powerless… helpless, you know, constant stress and thinking something could go wrong,” he said.
Augustine said he was so excited about being offered a job that he failed to look at his employment contract. He works with the Nuffield Health Leeds Hospital.
Another Nigerian doctor, Femi Johnson, who works at a different hospital, says he is expected to work 14 to 16-hour days and then be on call overnight.
“I was burnt out …I was tired, I needed sleep. It’s not humanly possible to do that every day for seven days,” he said.
Femi said whenever he needed a break due to exhaustion, the NES would deduct money from his salary.
The company says that is to cover the cost of finding a replacement doctor.
“In situations like that, I always make that internal discussion with my inner self – ‘Femi are you doing right by yourself and are you doing right by the patient?’
“Unfortunately, I haven’t always been able to answer that question,” he told the BBC.
The BBC said it spoke to several African doctors recruited in this way by NES, who equally told similar stories.
It said the British Medical Association (BMA) has described the situation as “shocking” and says the sector needs to be brought in line with NHS working practices.
