Funding shortfalls jeopardize medical students' future at the NHS - UK

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
23 Aug 2022 18:53

A British Medical Association survey showed that shortfalls in government student funding are jeopardizing the future of the NHS as current students are struggling to make ends meet amid a financial crisis.

The BMA survey found that 61.8% of those polled were struggling to afford their basic needs

A poll conducted by the British Medical Association, published on Tuesday, concluded that a "broken" system of state financial aid forced six out of ten medical students in the United Kingdom to reduce expenditure on food, clothes, and heating.

According to the survey, 61.8% of those polled were struggling to afford their basic needs. Similarly, 53.6% said they had to work and study to pay their bills which, based on information divulged by the survey, adversely affected their studies.

The BMA study also revealed that students who qualified for National Health Service bursaries discovered that it only covered 30% of their expenses. During the latter two years of their education, when they are doing clinical placements in the NHS and have less time for work, students see a further decline in their income.

Omolara Akinawonnu, BMA medical students committee co-chair, stated that the UK’s student aid system is "broken and in urgent need of reform." She further stressed that students with "astronomical" debts were doubting their futures in the NHS, which is currently short 8,000 physicians in England alone.

Akinawonnu warned that "This is no way to train our future doctors. We have a mental health emergency in universities that is about to implode as inflation skyrockets and the cost-of-living spirals out of control."

She stressed that students with "astronomical" debts were doubting their futures in the NHS, which is currently short 8,000 physicians in England alone.

Nearly one in twenty-five of the UK's 1,119 medical students who took part in the poll indicated that they had accessed a food bank. The underprivileged students suffered because of the funding constraints, which put their futures in the NHS in jeopardy.