Thousands of junior doctors in Britain, many of them Indians, are facing the prospect of unemployment within the next few weeks. Over 33,000 doctors have applied for the available 22,000 National Health Service training posts.
The deadline to fill the NHS training posts has been extended to October 31 this year. But thousands of doctors face an uncertain future with the number of applicants exceeding the number of available positions.
Junior doctors, who fail to get a position under the Medical
Training Application Service, end up emigrating to Canada, Australia or New Zealand.
The government has created 1,000 extra training posts, which will be allocated to qualified candidates who could not make the cut.
But critics point out that many of the doctors who have been assigned training posts are either overqualified or their salaries have been cut.
"This failed experiment has condemned some of our brightest young clinicians to a lifetime of being short-contract supply doctors," said Matthew Jameson Evans of the campaign group Remedy UK.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health said that more than 12,000 applicants were already in non-training posts and promised support for doctors who have so far been unsuccessful.
"If we want to maintain the quality of medical training for junior doctors in this country, it is important that there is an element of competition for these jobs," the spokesperson stated.