India, Nigeria trained doctors top UK blacklist

By Uduma Kalu

These are not good times for Nigerian doctors in the United Kingdom as Nigeria ranks 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 who want to practise in the United Kingdom.

A recent statistics released by the United Kingdom General Medical Council on doctors showed those it has struck off its list.

The figures released under the Freedom of Information Request by Daily Mail UK, showed that three-quarters of the doctors struck off the General Medical Council, GMC, register in the past five years were foreign-trained with India-trained doctors topping the list of foreign-trained doctors of the GMC register in the past five years.

Nigeria-trained doctors ranked second. Egypt trained- doctors  came third on the list.

The figures show that in UK, 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. This data focuses on the number of doctors struck off in Britain since 2008.

On the reverse side, doctors from countries like Hong Kong and New Zealand have clean records. Hong Kong has the best record, with none of more than 700 doctors working in the UK struck off or disciplined in the past five years while New Zealand’s 600 medics also have a clean record.