Why are many UK doctors from poor countries?

[poppet2]

At £9000 a year over four years, nobody in the UK can afford to study medicine?

 

Apparently in Cuba 1 in 4 people are doctors and all education is free. Whenever there is a disaster in the world, the biggest proportion of doctors come from Cuba, as they don't have anything to give from a financial point of view, but do so by sending health expertise.

[loraward]

I think that the lower figure of 11% is for lower paid workers.

 

The 11% is the total number of NHS staff that are foreign born.

 

---------- Post added 19-04-2015 at 17:13 ----------

 

I don't have the exact numbers to hand.

 

But imagine that there are 1 million foreign people in the UK.

63 million total people.

We need 1 nurse per 1000 people (for example), so we need 63,000 nurses, of whom, 13% are foreign.

 

If 13% of the foreigners go home, the population drops by 130,000. That means we need 130 fewer nurses. The total number of foreign nurses is 8190 though, in this example.

So we still need 12.79% foreign nurses.

 

When you said

 

"13% fewer foreigner people in the population, and we would not need the 13% foreign born nurses."

The word in bold made you wrong. If the population fell 13% in total, we wouldn't need the 13% nurses.

 

---------- Post added 19-04-2015 at 16:27 ----------

 

The difference isn't as extreme as that example of course because

 

11.9% of the population are foreign born.

 

---------- Post added 19-04-2015 at 16:29 ----------

 

I don't think we're comparing the same thing though.

 

The census records foreign born, but to be included at all they must be British (or permanently resident maybe) now.

Whereas the figures for the NHS are about foreign nationals, ie NOT British.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/26/nhs-foreign-nationals-immigration-health-service

 

Every household received a census form and everyone living in the household had to be included by law.

 

The census will include questions for the first time on civil partnerships, second homes and recent migration.

 

People who were born outside the UK will be asked when they most recently arrived in the country, with those who arrived in the past year asked how long they intend to stay.

 

It won't have included those that are here illegally.

Edited April 19, 2015 by loraward