Doctor arrested in hospital faces deportation

A SENIOR doctor in a Limerick hospital was in prison last night awaiting deportation to Nigeria.

Dr Anthony Osagie was arrested at St John’s Hospital in Limerick last Friday while watching a surgical procedure. He was working as a senior house officer (SHO) and at the time he was dressed in hospital scrubs witnessing the surgical procedure.

According to a hospital source, he got a message from hospital administration that gardaí wished to speak to him. He was arrested and brought to Limerick prison on foot of a deportation order issued by the Department of Justice.

Dr Osagie is from Lagos in Nigeria and has been in Limerick since the beginning of the year. He had been working at the hospital since July.

A source at St John’s said the doctor was arrested because his papers were not in order. It is not known if his family has been here in this country with him.

Colleagues at the hospital said they were shocked that Dr Osagie was taken away so quickly and said that they had “never had any problems with him”.

A source at the Irish Medical Council said there was a Dr Osagie registered with the organisation.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said it could not comment on this particular case but it had never heard before of a doctor being removed from a hospital in such a manner.

Chairman of the non-EU Graduates Committee Dr Syed Jaffrey said there were a lot of problems between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Justice over doctors’ working visas.

“The system for non-EU doctors is full of hitches and obstacles. It is quite complicated and is easy for doctors to get caught up in their everyday workload and not realise that their visa obligations have fallen behind,” said Dr Jaffrey.

It’s quite common, he said, for doctors to take buses in the early hours of the morning so that they can be in Dublin at 5am to begin queuing for a visa renewal.

“Non-EU doctors are the backbone of the Irish health system with about 3,500 in this country. It’s about time that their visa system was modernised.”

Meanwhile, immigration gardaí are increasingly concerned by the number of people from countries, such as Argentina and other South American states, which do not require a visa who are coming to Ireland with extended family.