Syrian refugee doctors to be retrained for British hospitals

The Refugee Doctors Project will provide already qualified doctors with training, mentoring and language support that will allow them to register with the General Medical Council and begin practicing medicine in Scotland.

"This programme – unique in the UK – will reduce the de-skilling of medics who have sought refuge in Scotland, and will allow NHS Scotland to utilise the experience of refugee doctors with valuable and highly specialised skills," said Scottish Equalities Secretary Angela Constance.

"We know access to training and employment is crucial to integration, and it can be devastating for those who had a skill in their home country to be unable to use that in their new country."

The Bridges Programmes, a charity specialising in the social, economic and educational integration of refugees, will run the training scheme in partnership with the British Medical Association, NHS Education for Scotland, Clyde College and the City of Glasgow College.

"Getting back into medicine is what I have been looking for since my first day in Scotland, and I cannot imagine myself being anywhere else" said Mohammad Helmi, a Syrian doctor who is participating in the project.

"It is my passion where I will able to contribute the most to humanity."

Equalities Secretary Angela Constance announced the funding at Kersland House Surgery in Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, which will be involved in the training of refugee doctors. 

In November, authorities announced that Scotland had 
housed over 1,200 Syrian refugees since the first flight arrived in Glasgow in 2015.

Of the country's 32 councils, only three are not participating in the refugee resettlement programme.