Student Visa Scam a Passport to Exploitation

UNISON is today calling for urgent Government action to close a serious legal loophole which is leaving overseas nurses at the mercy of unscrupulous employment agencies and vulnerable to exploitation.

Recruitment agencies are giving student visas to qualified nurses in order to bypass the rigorous checks and balances needed to work legally in the UK. With no working visas, they have no employment rights, no contracts of employment and they could be deported at any time.

British Embassies in the Philippines, India and Africa are being conned by employment agencies into issuing student visas to fully qualified nurses. This restricts the number of hours they are permitted to work in the UK to twenty and forces the nurses to work illegally. They incur huge debts even before they arrive in the UK. Agencies charge between £2,000 to £2,500 in placement costs and £1,200 for their adaptation fees. They are charged on average £60 a week rent and paid a only £4.75 an hour.

Speaking at UNISONÕs National Conference in Bournemouth, General Secretary Dave Prentis, said:

ÒUNISON is issuing a warning to all overseas nurses not to accept a student visas because they are a passport to misery.

ÒWhat counts when nurses come into this country is what is on their visa. A work permit is not worth the paper it is written on if you donÕt have the visa to match. Without a work visa you have no employment rights, you cannot work legally for more than twenty hours a week and if you break the terms of your visa you can be kicked out of the country.

The Government needs to act quickly and decisively to close this loophole. Unison is dealing with more and more overseas nurses with student visas who are at the mercy of private carehome owners.

ÒThey work up to 60 hours a week, are paid a pittance, made to work cleaning, cooking and doing laundry instead of getting their adaptation courses and using their nursing skills. And the scandal is, that they are so scared that they will be kicked out of the country because of their dodgy student status, they feel powerless to complain.

ÒIt brings shame of the Government that they are allowing qualified nurses be treated in the dreadful way, when we know the NHS is crying out for skilled nursing staff.Ó

Nurses coming into the country to work for the NHS can expect to get their expenses paid for travelling to the UK and would not be expected to pay any money for their adaptation course.

Allan Del Rosario, a qualified nurse from the Philippines was tempted to go through the Lexus Agency because they promised they could get him a job quickly in the UK. He was brought over to the country on a student visa and it was only when he got his Òwork permitÓ that he realised he would be working in a private care home instead of the NHS. He paid £2000 placement fee and £1200 for an adaptation course and for the first few weeks found himself sleeping on an old mattress on the floor of a walk in closet in a private nursing home in Croydon.

Allan said:

ÒI am not a student, I am a qualified nurse with many years experience, working to a high level in hospitals in the Philippines.

ÒI was very surprised to get a student visa and it made me feel very frightened. I honestly felt helpless. I felt paralysed as a person and as a professional.

ÒIt took me a long time to get my pin number and even then I just carried on working as a health care assistant because the home had no vacancies for qualified nursing staff.

ÒWith the help of UNISON I am trying to sort out my visa and I have already been offered a job at the Portsmouth hospital.Ó

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