A Syrian doctor whose deportation was halted by the UK’s first Covid lockdown has volunteered to help vaccinate people against the deadly virus after he was granted leave to stay in the UK.
Dr Bashar Al Hana has been living in Darlington for almost two years after arriving in England seeking asylum from his war-torn homeland.
He had been due to be deported back to Poland – his point of entry into Europe – last spring but the flight was cancelled amid the global shut down brought about by the pandemic.
Now, after winning his battle to stay in the UK for five years, the 36-year-old has volunteered to help in the NHS’s mass vaccination programme.
If the offer is accepted, he will administer jabs as he awaits his General Medical Council exams, which would allow him to work as a doctor in UK.
“It will be a nice opportunity to get into the hospital environment,” he told the Northern Echo. “But it is a very, very important job and I am lucky.”
He also paid tribute to those who had helped him in the year since the planned deportation.
They included the Darlington Assistance for Refugees charity and the northeast town’s Conservatoive MP Peter Gibson, who took up his case.
“My new family here have helped so much, and now I have received the hope that I can stop running, stop moving around from country to country and place to place,” said Dr Al Hana. “That's the key to starting to have a normal life again."
