MAIL ONLINE: Libyan doctors are to be trained by the NHS following an agreement signed by a Cabinet minister with Colonel Gaddafi's regime weeks before the release of the Lockerbie bomber, it emerged today.
The agreement is the latest in a series of moves to normalise relations between Britain and the north African state, which was an international pariah for years after being blamed for the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.
But the Department of Health dismissed as "nonsense" suggestions that the agreement had any link with the recent release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi or trade deals with the oil-rich regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed by former Health Secretary Alan Johnson in spring 2008, Libyan medical staff will be able to get a year's instruction in Britain.
Training opportunities will be available in the UK for Libyan medical staff in areas such as intensive care, anaesthetics and endoscopy, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, the Evening Standard reported.
Links have also been formed between London's Moorfields Eye Hospital and the main eye hospital in Libyan capital Tripoli.
The agreement was later discussed in a visit to Libya by then health minister Dawn Primarolo and was raised again when Mr Johnson's successor Andy Burnham met health minister Mohamed Hijazi during a trip to the country on constituency business earlier this year, said the Department. >>> | Tuesday, September 15, 2009
