Child refugee who became NHS doctor says vow to cut foreign staff is ‘dangerous’
Some of Waheed Arian’s earliest memories as a child include rushing down to the basement to take cover from incoming shells, rockets and bombs.
The first five years of his life were dominated by the Afghan-Soviet conflict, followed by years of civil war and the hardline regime of the Taliban.
In between this, he spent three years in malaria-ridden refugee camp in Pakistan, where he contracted tuberculosis and could have easily died.
Waheed didn’t have the best start in life but he never gave up on his dream that he could make something of it.
In 1999, at just 15 years old, his family took the difficult decision to send him to the UK on his own after a bomb completely flattened the home next door with a family inside.
After working three jobs and studying in three different colleges in the evening, Waheed managed to get a place at Cambridge University to study medicine, before moving onto Imperial College London and eventually becoming an A&E doctor for the NHS.
He has never lost sight of the compassion shown to him by this country, which granted him asylum and gave him the opportunity to give something back in return.
This is exactly why he was so shocked by Baroness Dido Harding’s pledge to end England’s ‘reliance’ on foreign doctors and nurses in her pitch to become the next head of the NHS.
The Tory peer, and former head of the Test and Trace scheme, has come under fire after vowing to challenge the ‘prevailing orthodoxy’ that it is better to import medical professionals from overseas, the Times reports.
According to the House of Commons Library, 170,000 out of 1.3 million NHS staff say their nationality is not British, amounting to nearly 14%.
Baroness Harding’s comment, made on World Refugee Day, was described as ‘crass’ and ‘deeply disrespectful’ by president of All Pakistan Nurses Association Zeba Arif.
But Waheed, 37, goes one step further, telling Metro.co.uk: ‘I felt insulted by that. So you want me to just stand down?’
‘It’s part of the big narrative of anti-migration and specifically anti-refugees which is really dangerous.
‘It’s such a dangerous comment to make, that we need to rely on homegrown doctors, the next step is you’re going to rely on homegrown taxi drivers, where does it stop?’
Waheed, who has worked as an NHS doctor since 2010, believes the rhetoric of Baroness Harding’s comments are in a similar vein to the Home Office’s proposed overhaul to the asylum process.
He recently projected a video on the House of Parliament in which he says that people like him wouldn’t have had the chance to become a doctor under Priti Patel’s ‘New Plan for Immigration’.
The legislation would mean heavily penalising, and often sending home, asylum seekers who come to the UK ‘illegally’, even if they have a legitimate reason to seek refuge.
Waheed may well have been one of those people, as someone who left in a hurry and was given a fake passport by an agent, spending 10 days in HMP Feltham before being granted asylum.
‘As soon as I arrived, I would be classified as illegal or removed from the benefits system, I wouldn’t have been allowed to study. Nothing would have happened,’ he says.
‘Refugees are an investment. They’re not immediately, but I was able to work and give something back.
‘They don’t just come to take and consume, they come here with their dreams as well but they just need that hand to allow them to stabilise themselves.’
As well as becoming an NHS doctor, Waheed has done overseas humanitarian work and has set up Arian Teleheal, a charity connecting doctors in warzones with expert clinicians from across the world.
He believes cultural diversity can only be a good thing for any health service, particularly given that he is versed in several languages and could speak to patients in Farsi, Hindi, Urdu, Pashtu or English.
Having suffered from PTSD from his turbulent life in Kabul, Waheed also believes his lived experience could provide helpful insight when treating patients with mental health conditions.
He added: ‘These are the other skills that we don’t necessarily see when people first come in.
‘They’re bringing in language skills, they’re bringing in innovation skills, because of the journeys they have taken.’
Waheed, who now lives in Chester with his wife and two children, believes Baroness Harding’s comments fuel a growing populist narrative against immigrants which he says ‘needs to stop here’.
He added: ‘Borders, sovereignty, that’s all important, but you can’t just take the fabric of society, which includes immigration, and break it down.’
Sonya Sceats, Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture, says: ‘Dido Harding’s vision to make our NHS less reliant on “foreigners” is emblematic of this government’s agenda to foment division.
‘Institutions like the NHS are a reminder of the unity between immigrants and people born in this country.
‘As this government attempts to dismantle our asylum system, we will continue to fight for a compassionate and fair process that has offered protection and enabled so many people like Dr Arian to rebuild their lives and give back.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Baroness Harding for comment.
Dr Waheed Arian is a NHS doctor and Afghan refugee. His new memoirs ‘In the Wars’, published by Bantam Press, is out now.
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