Vic plan to recruit 2,500 foreign docs_5476

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"Only through a fair and proper partnership can we work together to fix the damage caused by 11-and-half years of the Liberal federal government shamelessly failing to live up to its responsibility to train and recruit GPs," he said.
AMA Victoria president Dr Doug Travis said the doctor shortage stemmed from inadequate planning and decreasing medical student intakes by the Federal government more than a decade ago. He called for better training for new arrivals.
The Victorian government could recruit up to 2,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login,500 foreign doctors to redress an expected shortfall in the number of locally-trained medicos.
Victoria's population grew by 500,000 in the 10 years to 2006 but the number of GPs in the state to care for them grew by only one overall, the report said.
The recruitment campaign,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, detailed in a secret report obtained by News Limited newspapers, comes as Victoria is expected to have a shortfall of 980 doctors next year alone.
The government has already set up a Department of Human Services presence in London to attract British doctors to practise in Victoria.
"We need to put things into place so that these people can work to the best of their ability and we get the best results from it," Dr Travis said.
Vic plan to recruit 2,500 foreign docs
It would bring to 5,011 - or one in four overall - the number of foreign doctors expected to be practising in Victoria by 2014.
Tim Pigot,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, spokesman for Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, said the Victorian and federal governments were working to end a national shortage of health professionals.
Australian Overseas Trained Doctors Association president Andrew Schwartz said mass recruitment could dilute the quality of those arriving.