Doorstop - Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President and Mr Nick Brown, AMSA President: Federal Health Budget 2003-2004

PHELPS: Good evening. In January the Treasurer said that there would be no new money for health in this budget and it seems he was right.

This budget seems to pay more attention to creative accounting than a real, genuine commitment to Medicare. Of course over the last few weeks we have seen the announcement of most of the health budget with the Medicare reform package and the Australian Health Care Agreements announcements that have been made.

We felt that the Government had the opportunity to make some amendments to the Medicare reform package that it announced a couple of weeks ago. It has not taken use of that opportunity and that's a disappointment.

There are some good elements. There are some promising elements particularly in the areas of preventive health and the AMA will be analysing the health budget in full and we will have a briefing for the press tomorrow at AMA. Thank you.

BROWN: Hi, Nick Brown. I'm National President of the Australian Medical Students' Association.

Tonight we've seen the Government further highlight their scheme to try and broaden medical school places around the country as a means of solving rural and remote areas of shortage in the workforce.

While we do welcome the Government's attempts to increase medical school places, we welcome their acknowledgement of the fact that there is a shortage of doctors throughout Australia and this is one way, one way of solving this problem, we are disappointed that the Government has resorted to a scheme which is, in effect, conscription of medical students to fill this shortage of places in areas of need.

What this does, it does nothing to encourage students into medicine, to undertake medical careers. It does nothing to increase the attractiveness of rural service for medical students in the bush. In a sense, it is ineffective and it fails to achieve its main objectives.

All this scheme does is force harsh conditions. It's - sorry. It forces medical students into contracts with harsh conditions, with unfair and inequitable conditions. AMSA supports rural service. We believe that students should be exposed to rural service but we think their experiences need to be positive. They need to have positive experiences in order to return to the bush once they graduate.

The strict nature, the timing of this scheme, and the lengthy bonds fail to make this scheme workable. It detracts from the scheme. It makes it inefficient, unworkable and ineffective.

Ends