The United Kingdom has suspended the “active recruitment” of skilled and experienced health and social care personnel from Nigeria and 53 other countries globally.

The UK had placed Nigeria and other countries on the ‘red list’ through its updated code of practice for the recruitment of skilled and experienced health and social care personnel in England based on the World Health Organisation Workforce Support and Safeguard List, 2023.

The affected countries include Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, and Lesotho.

Others are Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mozambique, Niger, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Tanzania, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

“There must be no active international recruitment from countries on the red list unless there is an explicit government-to-government agreement to support managed recruitment activities that are undertaken strictly in compliance with the terms of that agreement,” the UK said in its updated policy on social and health workers released in March 2023.

The British Government, however, noted that the restriction list of the affected countries doesn’t prevent individual health and social care personnel from independently applying to health and social care employers for employment in the UK, “of their own accord and without being targeted by a third party, such as a recruitment agency or employer (known as a direct application)”.

It was earlier reported that a House of Representatives member, Rep Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson recently sponsored a “Brain Drain Bill” which has passed second reading, in the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill, 2022, seeking to compel Nigerian-trained doctors, nurses, and other health workers from moving out of the country to work in Europe and other parts of the world till they have served the country for five years.

Over the years, Nigerian doctors and nurses have formed a substantial percentage in the number of migrating young and skilled personnel in a sensation known as ‘brain drain.’

There has been a significant increase in the number of emigrating Nigerian health workers in the UK and other places after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 till date.

The reasons according to some medical personnel are due to poor working conditions of health workers in Nigeria as well as poor infrastructure in the hospitals. These have resulted in perpetual industrial actions by these health workers.