A bombshell statistic detailed in a correspondence between Miranda Newey, the Senior Medical Officer of the British Council and a Nigerian newspaper revealed that 5,528 Nigeria trained medical doctors have moved to the UK in the last 6 years.
This is based on data garnered between 2015 and July 2021 by the British Council, an agency responsible for the licensing and database management of medical practitioners domiciled in the UK.
As a result of the proliferation in the number of medical doctors migrating to the UK from Nigeria, the council opened a bigger medical examination centre. Clinical examinations are conducted by the council in order to ascertain the eligibility of medical doctors seeking to migrate to the UK to practice. A larger centre makes it possible to evaluate more doctors looking to work in the UK.
The demand for test placements has remained largely unaffected by the pandemic. In 2020, 833 Nigerian doctors passed the examination. This occurred despite the General Medical Council (GMC) suspending operations as a result of the pandemic. 509 Nigerian doctors have passed the exams in 2021 alone as at July 31st of this year.
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