25,000 Britain-trained doctors to leave for India

(AFP PHOTO / NARINDER NANU)

Nearly 25,000 British doctors of Indian origin are set to emigrate to India within two to four years, a report said Monday quoting a British medical association.

"There are around 15,000 young Indian-origin doctors undergoing training in different parts of Britain who will return to India," Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, told media in New Delhi.

"Also, at least 10,000 senior doctors of Indian origin who are retiring from their jobs in the UK are set to return to India," the doctor said, according to India-based The Economic Times.

Mehta said many of them were expected to take up positions in seven new elite medical centres for which the Indian health ministry is looking for quality doctors.

The centres will be dotted around the country and modelled on the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), considered India's best state-run research and treatment centre.

"We believe that these young doctors who are undergoing training in the UK currently can be of great help in the new AIIMS-like institutes," Mehta said.

The central government has given the go-ahead to seven AIIMS-type medical institutions in the states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Economic Times said.

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