Pakistan intends to send more than 150,000 health professionals to UK Image Credit:

LAHORE: Pakistan will provide more than 150,000 health professionals to UK in a bid to boost foreign remittance to the country.

Recently, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between AFCO-Private Limited, Pakistan, a Pakistani employment recruitment bureau and the MMC-Health Care Limited, UK for the new recruitment process. The agreement will help provide more than 150,000 medical sector jobs including 80,000 to 10,0000 nurses, 25000 doctors, 10,000 pharmacists and 20,000 allied paramedics to the UK.

These jobs are available for Pakistani medical professionals in the post-Brexit scenario. Following the MoU, an Overseas Job Creation Portal was inaugurated at the Punjab Governor’s House recently which would help ensure a proper mechanism by inviting Pakistani medical professionals to avail the opportunity.

Governor Punjab, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar during the formal launch of this portal had said the recruitment of the doctors, nurses and paramedical staff would contribute to the sustainable socioeconomic development of both the countries, which would help increase the volume of the foreign remittances. Punjab Governor assured to adopt General Practitioner (GP) system of the National Health Service (NHS) in UK and low-cost health care and subsidised medication to the remote area residents would be ensured.

Post Bexit employment

Regarding the opportunity to avail the post Brexit employment, the AFCO Private Limited chairman Answer Farooq in a statement said that the recruitment of the required medical staff from Pakistan was one of the top twenty Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as determined by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a central platform of the United Nations to reflect, debate and create innovative thinking on sustainable development around the globe.

Foreign remittance

According to a document of Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, the highest recorded remittances in a month since May 2019, Overseas Pakistani workers remitted US$2.097 billion in December 2019 as compared to US$1.819 billion during November 2019. On month-to-month basis, the remittances increased by US$277.56 million in December, with a growth of 15.25 per cent, the document said.

Pakistan doctors working abroad

According to the available data of Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, more than 40,000 Pakistani doctors were working abroad until March last year including 18,000 Pakistani doctors in USA and around 6,000 in the UK and other European countries.

State Bank of Pakistan’s quarterly report showed that Pakistani migrant workers in the US sent home US$2.004 billion in July-January during fiscal year 2019, compared with US$1.504 billion in the same period of the previous year.

UK remained the second top-sending remittances to the country with a total of US$1.942, as compared with US$1.585 billion during 2018.

Expectations

According to the report, the expected volume of the remittances to Pakistan in 2020 would reach between US$22.8 billion and US$23.3 billion, while in 2021 the remittances volume is expected to be between US$23.9 billion to US$24.4 billion. One of the important recommendations of the report was the strengthening of the efforts to increase remittances by enhancing the skill levels of Pakistan’s labour force.