Immigrant doctors cannot rescue COVID-19 patients in the US due to visa restrictions - ForumDaily
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Immigrant doctors cannot rescue COVID-19 patients in the US due to visa restrictions

Shantanu Singh is an experienced critical care physician who is also trained in pulmonology, the medical specialty that deals with the lungs. In short, he is exactly the doctor who is now urgently needed on the front lines of the coronavirus epidemic. But Singh cannot help the sick, since his visa does not allow this, he writes The Intercept.

Photo: Shutterstock

While New York’s hospitals are overloaded, patients die in makeshift emergency rooms and wait for days in wards lying on gurneys in the hallway, the virus has not yet begun to wreak havoc in Huntington, West Virginia, where Singh lives and works. Singh's schedule allows him to take 15 consecutive days at work and travel to New York or another state to help people without even quitting. Singh would like to help.

“This is what I’m trained to do,” he said.

But it is illegal for Singh to travel to places that desperately need his help in the fight against coronavirus. Although he received medical training and is a doctor in the United States, Singh is a foreigner born in India. In the States, he cannot join American doctors anywhere other than the hospital that sponsored his J-1 visa.

“My skills are not used in this country,” says the doctor.

Singh is not alone. In the United States, more than 10 doctors who have been trained in the country but cannot work in any hospital other than their current employer due to visa restrictions. And this is despite the public health emergency.

More than a quarter of doctors in the United States are foreigners. Among trainees in the field of pulmonology and intensive care - the specialists most needed to fight the coronavirus - more than 40% are also foreigners. More than a third of these doctors have graduated from international medical schools and have exchange visitor visas or other types of temporary worker visas, such as H-1B, that limit their ability to work.

Problems due to visa restrictions, which previously caused a lot of trouble to foreign doctors, are especially unpleasant during a pandemic. Both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio have recently made desperate calls for those with relevant medical skills to immediately take part in the fight against coronavirus. Even older doctors, who are particularly vulnerable because of their age, interrupted their retirement vacations and went to work to help fight the outbreak.

On the subject: The United States announced its readiness to issue visas to foreign doctors: why this led to a scandal

Ramakrishna Yalamanchili, a practicing physician at Regional Medical Center in Logan, West Virginia, is working in the United States on an H-1B visa. According to him, he cannot help “even our own hospital if help is needed in another department.” Of course, he also cannot travel to another part of the country, although he is well trained in the fight against coronavirus infection. He also worries that he may end up unable to help his wife.

“What if, God forbid, I get sick with coronavirus and something happens? She will be deported back,” says the doctor.

According to the Hospital Medicine Society, bureaucratic hurdles for doctors born abroad can be quickly removed. The organization appealed to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others to “act now” to give permanent status to the thousands of immigrant doctors who have been trained in the United States and are on the green card list. but not yet received. The group also requested that clinicians who received H-1B visas obtain permission to work in hospitals that did not fund their visas and to automatically renew their visas.

Even if the rules are changed quickly, these doctors will never have time to help some people. More than 14 people in the United States have already died from the coronavirus, a number that is likely significantly underestimated due to insufficient testing. As the number of new cases continues to rise and doctors on the front lines become increasingly ill, the shortage of doctors will only worsen.

Even before the advent of coronavirus, it was increasingly difficult for many foreign doctors to practice in the US, says Paavani Atluri, a doctor born in southern India and trained at the Monmouth Medical Center in New Jersey.

“The pandemic has made the situation worse,” said Atluri, who cited a lack of protective equipment and testing, as well as strict visa restrictions. — We say that the United States has the most modern healthcare system. But the attitude towards doctors makes me think about leaving.”

Read also on ForumDaily:

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