Crunch time for medical intern places
The AMA understands that Health Ministers will tomorrow discuss possible solutions to the potential shortfall of intern places for medical graduates next year.
The latest figures suggest that around 150 medical graduates will be denied an intern place for 2013.
AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, said today that these much-needed doctors could be lost to the Australian health system unless the Health Ministers can agree on a plan to fund and deliver intern positions that are essential to our future health workforce needs.
“The time for talking is over - we need to see a concrete plan of action emerge from tomorrow’s discussions,” Dr Hambleton said.
“The States and Territories have traditionally been responsible for funding intern training positions and they cannot and should not dodge their responsibility. They must work cooperatively with the Commonwealth to find a solution.
“We have seen medical graduate numbers increase dramatically since 2004 in response to community need.
“Local towns and suburbs that are lacking doctors will be let down if governments squander the significant investment made in training these medical graduates to this stage.
“It can take three months to accredit an intern training position. This work needs to start immediately if the positions are to be ready in time to allow these new doctors to start work in 2013,” Dr Hambleton said.
Health Workforce Australia (HWA) released Health Workforce 2025 earlier this year, which showed that Australia needs to keep all its medical graduates if we are to have sufficient doctors to meet the future health needs of the Australian community.
Health Ministers also need to look beyond 2013, with HWA data showing the potential for further bottlenecks in the medical training pipeline, including a shortage of specialist training positions from 2016 onwards.
Governments need to develop a plan to address these looming bottlenecks and commit the required resources to ensure that they are solved and that medical graduates can go on to achieve full specialist qualification.
25 September 2012
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