Page 463 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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Foreign doctors are being fast-tracked into Australia, bypassing the standard registration process despite statistics revealing they are responsible for half of all medical error and disciplinary cases.
The article continues:
Half of the doctors suspended and deregistered in NSW since the beginning of 2009 gained their medical degrees overseas. Of Medical Tribunal cases heard last year, 48 per cent involved overseas-trained doctors while 43 per cent of all currently suspended doctors qualified outside of Australia. …
Rural Doctors Association of Australia president Dr Nola Maxfield, said 41 per cent of country GPs were from overseas.
“You need to make sure the checks are rigorous,” she said. “There’s certainly a variation in the quality of medical degrees around the world.”
Notwithstanding Ms Porter’s objections to recommendation 3, the majority of the committee recommended that more data be collected and made available about overseas-trained doctors recruited to the ACT.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank all the participants who appeared before the committee and/or provided written submissions and exhibits. We also thank the Minister for Health and departmental officials, as well as members of the GP task force who participated in the inquiry.
I would also like to thank members of the committee—Ms Joy Burch, who was deputy chair until 31 October 2009; Ms Amanda Bresnan, who took over as deputy chair on 25 November 2009; and Ms Mary Porter, who joined the committee on 19 November 2009—for the professional manner that was adopted during the inquiry and for the sharing of views in the final deliberations and recommendations.
In particular, I would like to pass on my personal thanks, as well as the thanks of all members of the committee, to the committee secretary, Ms Grace Concannon, for her advice and support and contribution to our committee’s final report for tabling, and to the committee office administrative assistant, Ms Lydia Chung, for her assistance with preparing the committee’s final report.
I commend the report Access to primary health care services and its recommendations to the Assembly.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.51): I just want to say a few words about the report. Like Mr Doszpot, I would like to thank, first off, the other committee members. The chair, Mr Doszpot, did an excellent job in chairing the hearings and report deliberations. I have to say it was a difficult job coming in after all the hearings had been conducted and then having to comment on the report, and I thank Ms Porter for her very useful and insightful contributions throughout the report deliberations, and also the previous committee member, Ms Burch, who was obviously part of the hearings which we had.
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