UNTIL recently, Ahmad Zia Baluch was working as a doctor in a children’s hospital in Kabul, the capital of war-torn Afghanistan.

As well as completing his medical training as a specialist in paediatric orthopaedics, Ahmad supplemented his income as an interpreter for NATO forces – and that put him in the Taliban’s line of fire.

Targeted as a spy, he fled with his wife and three small children, making his way to England last summer.

Nine months on, he is part of a pilot project on Teesside with two main objectives: to provide humanitarian support for refugee doctors; and to bolster the under pressure NHS.

After claiming asylum in London, 35-year-old Ahmad and his family were bussed to a hostel in Birmingham before being allocated accommodation in Middlesbrough.

“I’d heard of Middlesbrough because of its football club but that’s all I knew,” he says.

Ahmad is one of the first cohort of 12 health care professionals to be given places on the Refugees Programme for Overseas Doctors ¬– a pioneering partnership between North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, and a charity called Investing in People and Culture.

The charity was set up in Middlesbrough in October 2010 when the crisis in the Middle East was leading to an influx of refugees.

Newly-qualified doctor Rouni Youssef, 27, a Kurd who fled from his home city of Aleppo three years ago, is also on the programme.

“I had to leave Syria – it wasn’t safe. There was no life for me there,” he says.

Rouni is reluctant to go into detail about how he made his way to this country but, after initially being sent to a hostel in Wakefield, he too ended up in Middlesbrough. He was scared and alone but his life changed when he met Janice Pitt, a teacher volunteering for the Investing in People and Culture charity.

“She was my hero – my guardian angel,” says Rouni, breaking into a smile.

Janice began helping him with his immediate challenge of learning English, so that he could take his advanced language exams. From those beginnings, the charity provided a room for teaching to take place, and the number of refugees who needed to learn English began to grow.

At the same time, Professor Jane Metcalf, Deputy Medical Director of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, had identified a need to support refugees who had a background in health care in their own countries.

Following talks with Professor Namita Kumar, Postgraduate Dean for Health Education England in the North-East and Cumbria, funding was found to support the experimental programme by covering examination fees and administration costs.

The pilot scheme comprises 11 doctors and one pharmacist from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, the Congo, and Pakistan. Each delegate has been matched with at least one mentor, given access to clinical teaching, and provided with opportunities to volunteer in the trust to help improve their English.

Phase one involves a vigorous language testing system. That has to be passed before progression to phase two, where the refugee doctors are given clinical placements, with structured training leading to professional examinations. Phase three involves supporting them in getting jobs. None are paid until they are registered with the General Medical Council and working in the NHS.

The pilot began in December but good progress has been made, with the first delegates expected to begin clinical training placements with the trust soon.

Professor Metcalf says: “The primary reason for doing this is humanitarian but the programme also has the potential to provide much needed support for the NHS.

“This area of the country has a particularly acute problem in recruiting and retaining doctors so a side-effect of the programme will be to fill gaps we couldn’t otherwise fill. These are early days but it is really promising.”

Bini Araia, co-founder of Investing in People and Culture, came to Britain 16 years ago as a political refugee from Eritrea, in north east Africa, and is similarly optimistic about the value of the pilot.

“It is very positive because it helps those doctors who have fled their own countries, and it is helping the NHS too,” he says. “It is a win-win.”

Karen Wilkinson-Bell, who began as a volunteer and now chairs the charity, adds: “These people are skilled doctors and yet some were surviving by delivering pizzas.

“Now, for a relatively small investment in time and money, this programme is achieving great things on a humanitarian level while also benefitting our local area immensely by plugging gaps in the NHS.”

Within a year of fleeing the Taliban, Ahmad Zia Baluch is settling into life in the North-East of England with his wife Dewa and their children, Hana, six, Yousef, four, and Zainab, three. Hana will be starting school in Middlesbrough soon and her father hopes to get a job as an orthopaedic specialist on Teesside.

“We have been treated well in every way since coming here,” says Ahmad. “My family feel safe and now I want to pay this country back.”

He’ll be doing just that by adding his skills to the under pressure NHS.