AN AFRICAN doctor staying in Huddersfield has hit out at the Home Office after being told to leave the UK.

The ruling was made despite the fact that asylum seeker Cristina Neto was offered a fully-funded course that would bring her qualifications into line with British ones.

The UK has a desperate shortage of doctors and health chiefs are constantly trying to tempt them from other countries.

But they don't want Cristina, 45, who is from Angola, but trained in Sarajevo, in what was then Yugoslavia.

The Home Office today said asylum cases were decided on whether it was felt individuals had a strong enough case to justify staying, rather than what they could offer the UK professionally.

Cristina worked as a GP in Luanda, the capital of her home country, for 15 years, enjoying considerable wealth, a huge home and high standing in her community.

But she says things turned sour when her husband, a chief of police, decided he wanted to split from her - and did all he could to hound her out.

Cristina has been staying in a room in a shared National Asylum Seeker Support Service house in Grasmere Road, Marsh.

The Leeds-based Refugee Education Training Advice Service had agreed to pay for a course that would bring her qualifications into line with those needed in Britain.

But the Government has said she must leave.

Cristina, the mother of a 23-year-old son who suffers from chronic hypertension, said: "It's nonsense. They are so short of doctors.

"I even tried to work voluntarily at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, but they said no."

Now, she is set to secure a grant from the Angola authorities to return to Sarajevo, to do a post-graduate course in radiology.

She has been attending Gledholt Methodist Church, whose members have given £250 towards her air fare. Pam Bye, of the Kirklees Friends and Refugees Together (Kraft) group, has given the remaining £50.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Asylum applications are considered on their merits.

"There is nothing to stop a person returning to their home country and applying to come to the UK to work."