( London: Nearly 5000 Indian doctors hav...)Indian Doctors Return Home from Britain, More on the Way,Health

London: Nearly 5,000 Indian doctors have so far returned home after failing to find suitable employment// in Britain's National Health Service (NHS) that forced them to live with rats, cockroaches and scrounge for free meals in temples and gurdwaras.

The figure of 5,000 returning to India is since April 2006 when changes were made to immigration rules. The changes were challenged by the Indian medical community in court but a judicial review was disallowed by the high court February 9.

Leaders of the Indian medical community say that the figure of 5,000 is approximate and that the actual figure could be more. The returning doctors had passed the requisite tests for employment in the NHS, but had failed to find jobs mainly due to a larger pool of available doctors from within Britain and the European Union and NHS budgetary cuts.

Many more Indian doctors face the prospect of returning home after the February 9 ruling. All attention is now focussed on the ongoing recruitment process for 21,000 NHS jobs starting August 2007. The current recruitment is part of a new system called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) that came into effect this year.

From Jan 22 to February 4, more than 30,000 doctors applied for the 21,000 available jobs in various specialities - and of them 10,000-12,000 applicants are said to be Indians. Short-listing of candidates for the jobs is expected to be completed by February 24 and interviews will take place in the first week of March.

Leaders of the Indian medical community are working to ensure that the Indian applicants in the current round are not adversely affected in the recruitment process by the February 9 ruling of the high court. Those who are not selected in this round will also face the prospect of returning home.

Lakshman Raman, vice-chair (policy) of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), told IANS that if the new rules issued in April
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