UK-based Zimbabwean nurse, author and mental-health campaigner Angeline Moyo has warned that Britain’s Health and Care Worker visa scheme is inflicting serious harm on many Zimbabweans, exposing them to exploitation, trauma and profound psychological distress.
Moyo—author of Zimbabwe’s Silent Crisis and After the Injection: A Memoir of Survival and Resistance—says a policy designed to support vulnerable people has instead created a “pipeline of forced migration,” leaving countless carers trapped in abusive situations.
She cites the case of Gaynor Fundira, a Zimbabwean woman detained under the UK’s Mental Health Act, whose request for help ended in confinement. “By the time the ward doors opened, her liberty had already been signed away. She asked for help, but what she got was a risk score, a file number and months of being ‘managed’ rather than heard,” Moyo said.
Moyo questioned how many other Zimbabwean women have been sectioned under the same legislation, noting official data showing that Black people in England are detained at more than three times the rate of White people—228 detentions per 100,000 compared with 64 per 100,000.
She also accused rogue recruitment agencies of exploiting carers, alleging that many Zimbabweans pay illegal fees of £5,000 to £20,000 for job placements, only to face overcrowded housing, erratic hours or no work at all.
Drawing on her own experience of racist bullying, forced injections with antipsychotic drugs and over five years in secure mental-health detention, Moyo warned that the system is “failing on two fronts: regulation of recruitment and culturally competent mental health care.”
Her comments come amid a sharp rise in migration from Zimbabwe to the UK. Between June 2022 and June 2023, Britain issued 20,152 Health and Care Worker visas to Zimbabweans—a 372% increase since 2020. Over the same period, more than 4,000 doctors and nurses left Zimbabwe, further weakening a health service already battered by drug shortages, low pay and chronic staff losses.
While the influx of foreign staff has helped ease NHS shortages—non-UK nationals now account for 20.4% of England’s health workforce—it has also left many Zimbabwean workers battling depression, isolation and financial strain, often separated from their families.
“What we need now is trauma-informed, culturally competent mental-health care, stricter regulation of the carer visa scheme to prevent exploitation, and bilateral cooperation between the UK and Zimbabwe to protect human dignity,” Moyo said.
She has also urged the publication of transparent data on Zimbabwean detentions under the Mental Health Act and the formal recognition of Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED) as a legitimate condition.
For Zimbabwe, the exodus of professionals has deepened an already dire crisis, with just 1.9 nurses per 1,000 people compared with the UK’s 8.2. For Britain, reliance on overseas labour fills immediate staffing gaps but raises ethical concerns about draining talent from struggling nations.
“The result,” Moyo warns, “is a vicious cycle in which Zimbabwe bleeds professionals while Britain grows dependent on their sacrifice.”
Source: Pindula
