British medical bungling good for Australia

Recruiters plan to target an oversupply of more than 11,000 British doctors to fix Australia's chronic doctor shortage. Health officials and representatives from the national GP training scheme will travel to Britain this year to woo doctors who fear they will be left in dead-end jobs after planned changes by the Blair Government. Recruiters hope the availability of a well-trained pool of doctors may also reduce the chance of a safety scandal akin to events at Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, where surgeon Jayant Patel was accused of harming patients.

The British Medical Association is up in arms over Mr Blair's changes. It claims 21,000 qualified doctors would compete for fewer than 10,000 training posts that lead to medical consultant roles - the top tier of specialists. Those who miss out on one of the 10,000 training posts may end up in hospital roles that offer negligible opportunities for better pay or career advancement, or even out of work.

Some doctors, such as Stephen Byrne, 27, are emigrating. After two weeks as a neurosurgery registrar at Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, he said his work here was more interesting than in Britain, he received better training and he was not worried his career would be stifled. "I made the decision (to apply for work in Australia) at the end of February. I was looking to go into a career in neurosurgery but I didn't see much point in hanging around the UK trying to chase one of a dwindling number of jobs," he said.

No official estimate of Australia's doctor shortage exists, but a federal Government study on general practice last year found a nationwide shortage of between 800 and 1300 GPs. Senior health bureaucrats in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia agreed that the British oversupply offered a significant opportunity to cut doctor shortages. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie went to London last year to recruit 1200 health staff, including 300 doctors and 500 nurses. Since then, 849 doctors had expressed interest, and 10 had started work, with another 15 appointed.

Source






Billions of extra government spending on health buys you this:

Queensland eye patients in limbo after closure

The temporary closure of the Queensland Eye Bank means patients with failing eyesight face an indefinite wait for their vision to be restored, Opposition health spokesman Bruce Flegg said today. Dr Flegg said the Eye Bank, at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, could no longer supply eye tissue to surgeons who operate on around 500 Queenslanders a year. He said staff resignations meant the Queensland Health facility had been closed for six weeks and there was "no light at the end of the tunnel". "Queensland currently is the only state in Australia not offering a cornea transplant service," Dr Flegg said. He said the situation shows the "falsity" of Premier Peter Beattie's claim of Queensland Health having hundreds of extra clinical staff. Dr Flegg said it would take only weeks to train nursing staff to harvest the cornea donations and keep them in a suitable condition at the Eye Bank for surgeons to use.

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said it was hoped the Eye Bank would reopen by the end of July. Some corneas have been imported from interstate for emergencies.

Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here, the mirror site may be more up to date. My Home Page is here or here.

***************************