18 internationally trained midwives have joined Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) to increase staffing levels, skills, and diversity in the Trust’s maternity services.
Initially recruited through NHS England funding, the midwives were offered additional training to become UK registered and subsequently placed as student midwives across City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre. They have arrived from Ghana, Iran, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Zambia.
This recruitment will undoubtedly tick the staffing levels and diversity boxes, but what skills and expertise will the trainees bring? Esther Draycott, Practice Development Midwife and Lead for International Recruitment can enlighten us.
She said, “The recruitment of these international midwives has had a huge impact on our midwifery team, diversifying our workforce, improving staffing levels, and increasing the level of expertise we have in our team as each midwife brings a wealth of skills from her home country.”
In other words, these skills that the UK’s midwifery profession can benefit from are never specified. Instead, we are expected to accept that these midwives have untold knowledge and prowess simply because they are “diverse,” even though they are trainees, and the fundamental medical procedures of childbirth should be universal across the globe.
The trainees themselves could shed some light on what they can offer the NHS. Bernice Waana-ang, a midwife in Ghana for more than two years before coming to the UK, said: “I decided to travel to the UK to further my career as a midwife. Being able to use specialised equipment and advanced technology is something I am looking forward to.”
Relebohile Mokoena, another newly qualified midwife, said: “I am originally from South Africa and had been a midwife for four years.
“I am incredibly happy and grateful for the opportunity to move and work in the UK. Midwifery is highly respected, and the growth opportunities are immense.
“Working at NUH has been one of the best experiences of my career. The support from management and peers has been exceptional.”
Elmo Angueti, the only male midwife in the cohort, said: “I first started as a nurse on a gynaecology ward, and one of my colleagues said I would make a good midwife. I considered it and went for midwifery training.”
It seems that the trainees themselves are unaware of what they can offer the NHS. Instead, there appears to be a lot of “take” but little “give” as far as they are concerned. Another common theme is that there is much consideration for career growth, support, and opportunities to be gained, but nothing that could be considered reciprocal.
Elaborating further, Esther said: “It’s a huge change for the midwives and lots to adjust to, with a new language and culture, and having to find somewhere new to live with their family. The midwives receive lots of support from the international pastoral team when they arrive to help them find accommodation and schools; for example, they have settled into life at NUH well.”
It’s worth noting that there is an unspoken truth about all this: these diversity “benefits” don’t come for free. They come at a premium cost. The average price of hiring foreign nurses is between £10,000 and £12,000, paid for, you guessed it, you. But this is not the worst of it; oh no, take this statement regarding recruiting overseas nurses: ”the longer-term or broader costs of alternative routes to increase nurse numbers, such as the use of agency nurses or increasing domestic training numbers.”
In other words, while this monetary cost seems high, the NHS and its diversity-obsessed bosses are just not that interested in training our native sons and daughters. It turns out it is far more ”cost-effective” to recruit foreign workers and allow the English, Scottish, and Welsh to waste their potential working in McDonald’s or unemployment. Ask your son or daughter the last time they were offered £12,000 to train for a profession because it’s more likely they would have to pay for it themselves to have the same privilege as the diversity class.
Last year, I reported on the story of Barbara Rymell, an old-age dementia patient who tragically died after a fall. It wasn’t so much the injuries she sustained that led to her death, but instead, her two carers were unable to explain the nature of the accident to the emergency services because of language barriers. The story is a sad but sobering lesson on the risks of accepting low English proficiency in the medical and care professions. It’s one thing to make mistakes when fixing a car, but quite another when lives are at stake.
Now, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that these trainees do, indeed, turn out to be the star pupils we are being led to believe they are. Is it not morally and ethically questionable for a developed country like the UK to poach valuable staff from poorer and more needy health systems across the globe? Wouldn’t these valuable assets be better placed in those countries where they are most needed?
Ironically, it’s the same kind of person who would critique Britain’s colonial past as exploitative and plunderous that would also celebrate this trainee initiative, even though it essentially amounts to the same thing. Exploitation becomes palatable as long as it leads to an increase in diversity. Just consider that any foreign nurse who wishes to end their employment with the HNS will likely face a bill of up to £14,000, more in line with long-term indentured employment.
To conclude, the NHS is struggling to meet demand, and we need more skilled clinicians. The Homeland Party believes, however, that the supply of good clinicians is already within our shores, and while it may cost a little more to put our children on the path to a good profession, it is worth remembering that it’s our taxes, so we will invest in our future.
We would scrap these expensive and pointless diversity programs, which negatively impact the professional development of our people. Britain has played a pivotal role in the sharing of modern medicine and scientific knowledge internationally. There is no reason why our people should now be denied the chance to continue our proud medical heritage just for the sake of discriminatory hiring practices disguised as altruism when, in reality, the demand for more immigrant workers is directly related to the number of immigrants using the NHS. In other words, immigration is expanding to meet the needs of expanding immigration.
