by Rachel Ogbu

Its not a positive way to start the year but doctors trained in Nigeria rank second on the list of the doctors struck off the General Medical Council (GMC) register in the United Kingdom.

This could have an effect on Nigeria–trained doctors desiring to practise in the United Kingdom.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Request by a British tabloid, the Daily Mail, show that three-quarters of the doctors struck off the GMC register in the past years are foreign-trained with India-trained doctors top the list.

Egypt-trained doctors occupy the third spot. The paper revealed further that “194 of the 285 doctors struck off for misconduct or incompetence in the past five years were foreign-trained, while 29 of the 39 removed from the medical register in the past year received their medical degree overseas.”

The Guardian reports:

Continuing, the paper disclosed that “with only one-third of the 250,000 doctors on the medical register trained outside the United Kingdom, this means that those from overseas were more than five times likely than British doctors to be banned.”

Quoting the data it obtained under the Freedom of Information Request – the equivalent of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act – the Mail revealed that “India has the largest number of doctors struck off in Britain since 2008, followed by Nigeria and Egypt.”

This is in sharp contrast to Hong Kong, which has the best record, “with none of more than 700 doctors working here – in the UK – struck off or disciplined in the past five years. New Zealand’s 600 medics also have a clean record.”

Based on the revelations, the paper quoted Julia Manning, the chief executive of the 2020 Health think-tank, as saying “these figures are really worrying and shocking” and that “we need to take a hard look at the assessment of all doctors coming into the country.”