The MTAS refugees... Our Story #1

Sumitra is one of the new registrars in the New Town anaesthetics department. Like me, Sumitra is an MTAS refugee. Before the government decided that was perfectly reasonable to force thousands of junior doctors to move hundreds of miles away from their families and friends, Sumitra lived with her husband and four children in a town about four hour’s drive from New Town.

Sumitra is quite a bit older than I am. She decided to take time out from working to bring up her children and she also had a change of speciality along the way as well. Her husband has a career that means he can’t easily move and the eldest of her children is beginning the run up to GCSEs. Understandably, Sumitra isn’t really keen to relocate her whole family up toward New Town because of the disruption it’s going to cause. Added to this, there’s the fact that she doesn’t know this area at all. She doesn’t know which suburbs are nice to love in, or which are the decent schools etc… etc…

I’ve had several conversations with Sumitra about what she’s going to do and she just doesn’t know at the moment. What I do know is that having to move to a place four hours away from her family is going to put a huge strain on Sumitra’s relationship with her husband and her children. Hopefully, they’re a strong enough family to be able to work it out somehow.