The NHS is an international health service that relies on some 170,000 foreign born staff from more than 200 countries.

Many non-British members of NHS staff have visas to allow them to live and work in the UK which can be extended by a year – but that is nowhere near enough to plan a future around.

Now there are calls for frontline staff from overseas to have the right to stay in the UK indefinitely in recognition for their service during the most challenging of years.

Nurse Eva Omondi is one of those dedicated professionals who came to the UK to work for the NHS and joined the fight against coronavirus.

“Seeing how [patients] die, it’s been very emotionally draining,” she said. 

Added to the stress however, was the anxiety over her right to remain in the country she would like to make her permanent home.She said: “The risk and the stress of working in the pandemic is enough price to pay to just ask for indefinite leave to remain.”The government brought in visas to make it easier for health workers to come to the UK and – after pressure from Ms Omondi and other nurses – abolished the fees they used to pay to use the health service. 

But campaigners say none of that goes far enough to reward their sacrifice in our service.

Within months of starting work in the UK, Bangladeshi doctor Pushpo Hossein contracted Covid-19.

“I got high fevers, body ache,” she said. 

“I also developed shortness of breath and that was very scary.”

Dr Pushpo Hossain

If she had died, her husband would have been granted the right to stay in the UK. But she said that is hardly an incentive to continue working for the NHS. 

“So that make me think, so okay, I have to die to prove my loyalty,” she said. 

“I feel betrayed sometimes. I feel very heartbroken.”

Last month, a private members bill that would offer indefinite leave to remain to NHS workers was halted under Common’s Covid safety rules. But the campaign continues.Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine, who brought the bill to Parliament, said: “We hear every-day about NHS staff who are contracting Covid-19. 

“People who are doing that shouldn’t’ have to live with any possibility that they might be deported. That’s just not good enough.”

Dr Jenny Vaughan, Vice-chair of The Doctor’s Association UK says that doctors and nurses should be protected from Covid-19 treatment decisions on ITV News.

“‘They are doing extraordinary things with the resources they have'” she said

“As we’re seeing covid numbers going up in the community, it’s inevitable that cases will go up in hospital. But also that means there’s a greater risk of hospital acquired covid…we must not be complacent”

Dr David Nicholl appeared on ITV news, warning of the pressure the NHS is currently under:

“When Simon Stevens says we’re in the “eye of the storm”, I would say that we are in the eye of a hurricane. This is a winter like no other, and this is the biggest health crisis this country has faced in 100 years.”

Dr David Nicholl, DAUK

Inspectors say they found significant concerns and risks to patients within the maternity and midwifery service, which included the failure to track and score observations of some women and new-born babies in order to identify deterioration.

The Care Quality Commission say they raised these concerns with the trust immediately following the inspection and a warning notice was issued stating that improvements must be made by 31 January 2020.

The Doctors’ Association UK raised the alarm after our members brought to our attention that doctors were being finger-printed by West Suffolk in an effort to identify an anonymous whistleblower. The story was first broken by The Guardian and DAUK in December.

Speaking to ITV news DAUK’s Learn Bot Blame lead Dr Jenny Vaughan said: “The only way you can make patients safer is by providing a very open environment…if you don’t get that you get a cover up culture..you get bullying…Doctors that approached DAUK said they felt persecuted.” Her comments come after “witch hunt for a whistleblower”

For the full news reel: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020-01-30/west-suffolk-hospital-requires-improvement/