New Zealand has many doctors from other countries who could not find work here. Sometimes this is because their English is not good enough or because in the past we had enough doctors.
Now we have a shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas. There is also a shortage of specialists, like child cancer specialists. Nearly half of the doctors in our hospitals are from overseas. Many of them are British and they come here for a year or two when they are young to experience the New Zealand lifestyle.
We also have many refugee and immigrant doctors who are driving taxis because they could not work here. Now the Medical Council wants to help these doctors, to retrain them here and will help them with the costs. They have to pass the English test and the medical theory test first, and they must be permanent residents (PR).
If they cannot pass the English test, it is possible there will be other work for them in the health area.
It is interesting that many New Zealand graduates from medical school go overseas to work, especially to Australia. Some come back, some don’t. Now we need overseas doctors to fill the gaps in the health area.
Listen to February 23 2009 to hear more about graduates leaving New Zealand.
Questions
1. Why do immigrant doctors come to New Zealand when they know it is hard to get a job in the health area here?
2. What are some of the different cultural matters that doctors need to learn when they retrain?
3. What are some of the advantages ad disadvantages of having many overseas doctors?