FED: Doctors plan creates problems, says Oppn

AAP General News (Australia)
04-28-1999
FED: Doctors plan creates problems, says Oppn

CANBERRA, April 28 AAP - A plan to send foreign doctors to rural Australia would create
more problems than it solved, according to the federal opposition.

A scheme announced yesterday by the commonwealth and Western Australia aims to license
foreign doctors to practise in Australia, provided they agree to work in a specified rural or
remote area for at least five years.

Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said it was a way of getting specialist GPs into
country areas, where there is a shortage of doctors.

But Labor's acting health spokesman Chris Evans said it was merely a quick fix, and the
government should be looking at bonded scholarships for Australian medical students.

Senator Evans also said exempting some overseas doctors with post graduate qualifications
from the requirement to pass the Australian Medical Council examination discriminated against
a large number of overseas-trained doctors who were already permanent residents.

"This plan will mean that other doctors, particularly those wanting to leave South Africa,
will be allowed to queue jump," he said.

"It will also mean that medical students at Australian universities will face impossible
competition when they graduate because the minister proposed that this new group of overseas
doctors will be allowed to enter the general medical workforce in five years time."

AAP sc/it

KEYWORD: DOCTORS DAYLEAD

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