Slave Labour: Nigerian Doctors Laments Exploitation In UK

Nigerian Doctors in the United Kingdom raises alarm of been exploited and over worked by some Private Medical Centres in the United Kingdom.

Some doctors even claim that their salaries are even deducted if they are not available at Night after over the excessive hours of work during the day.

Augustine Enekwechi, a Nigerian doctor, who worked at Nuffield Health Leeds Hospital in 2021, said he was approached by NES Healthcare, a private company that specialises in employing doctors from overseas, and was offered visa sponsorship and a potential job.

The doctor said he failed to notice that the NES contract opted him out of the law that protects UK workers from excessive working hours and left him vulnerable to a range of salary deductions.

Enekwechi added that his hours were extreme – 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,” he says. “I felt powerless… helpless, you know, constant stress and thinking something could go wrong,” BBC quoted him as saying.

The British Medical Association, however, described the situation as “shocking” and say the sector needs to be in line with the NHS working practices.

Another doctor, Dr. Femi Johnson, who worked at another hospital said he was also expected to work 14 to 16-hour days and then be on call overnight.

“I was burnt out,” he says. “I was tired, I needed sleep. It’s not humanly possible to do that every day for seven days.”

Johnson added that when he needed a break, the NES was entitled to deduct money from his salary to cover the cost of finding a replacement doctor.