The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) has developed changes to the federal legislation which restricts access to Medicare provider numbers and effectively limits where international medical graduates and “former overseas medical students” can work for a minimum period of 10 years – the “10-year moratorium”. The proposed amendments would remove anomalies in the moratorium which have adversely affected significant numbers of IMGs, as well as doctors who have been educated in Australia and lived here for many years.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, has written to Minister for Health and Ageing to request that the proposed amendments be introduced into Federal Parliament. He says that while the AMA believes an incentives-based approach is better way to encourage doctors to areas of workforce shortage, given the 10-year moratorium is a concrete part of government policy, the AMA wants the changes to the legislation to be enacted as a matter of urgency.