Following the population boom in Australia in the last decade, the country have been facing a chronic shortage of medical professionals. In 2005 to 2011, a total of 17,910 international medical graduates (IMGs) were sponsored to Australia on temporary basis with another 2,790 directly given a permanent resident visa as skilled migrants. The aggressive unfiltered attempts to bring in medical migrants raised concerns about the quality of their performances. When the Australia Medical Council subjected their medical migrants to a clinical examination, the results were not impressive.
Australian Medical Council clinical examination outcomes by top 10 countries of training, 2004–2010*
As a result according to this source: [link]
That explains why it is so easy for people with medical background to migrate to Australia with either a working or permanent visa via the fast track route. It also solved the mystery of the Singaporean doctor who called told me the Singapore government had made professionals like him 'Third World' doctors. [link] While it is still easy for doctors to obtain permanent residency via skilled migration, Singapore's decision to opt out of Australia's fast-track initiative has made it very difficult for doctors to find jobs because they are no longer recognized by the medical council for their competency level.
While Singapore's intention to minimise workforce loss is rational and reasonable, it is a frightening prospect just to imagine what our government can do to discredit any of our home-grown professions to the rest of the world. Prior to learning about this, I had the naive thinking that our government has absolutely no control over their citizens if they really want to leave. I was dead wrong. It could happen to engineers, architects, teachers or you though the chances are minimal at the moment.
I had a guest from Sydney over for dinner on Friday. She told me she attended the recent "Singapore Day" in Sydney and described how she got the vibe that the Singapore government strongly encourage Singaporeans in Australia to return home for good. If that was really the intention of spending millions of dollars to treat overseas Singaporeans a free lunch, the government did seem serious in rounding us up. Perhaps one day they will realise it is far cheaper, better and faster to stop Singaporeans from leaving than to encourage them from returning, so never say never that they wouldn't make your professional "third world" some day.
What you should be aware is this table
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mja.com.au/open/2012/1/3/international-medical-migration-what-future-australia?inline=true#colorbox-0_BABCJICD
where 390 doctors permanently migrate to Australia in 5 years or approximately 78 doctors each year.
If this source http://www.geraldtan.com/premed/Singapore_medical_schools.html is to be believed there at about 300 + 56 + 50 = 406 medical students being enrolled in 2013.
So Australia may account for 20% of all new medical graduates. Nothing to sneeze at.
This is not even considering the US and Canada and UK and NZ. Even if you assume that the rest of these countries only account for another 10% (because Australia is such a great country to be migrating to) that is still 30% of news doctors leaving Singapore to overseas.
Ok we know for sure that the doctors migrating to Australia are unlikely to be new graduate, rather they would be more likely to be experienced doctors and surgeons.
So this is quite a significant amount.
If I am the government I would want to restrict outflow as well! Can't run a medical hub business like Singapore Inc if I let any doctor leave so easily
What the government is doing is reasonable from the angle of running a business. Same goes for protecting our own interests on the individual level.
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ReplyDeleteActually in a few years time newly trained Singaporean medical specialists will have to do exactly that: produce stacks and stacks of documents to prove their experience and training.
DeleteThe current UK specialist qualification taken in Singapore and UK allow them to be able to practice in any country which recognised the UK qualification
As they move towards the new American style residency program which is quite different from the current UK style training, the inside word is that the final qualification is quite like the Malaysian or other ASEAN countries system where there is no direct international comparison.
For example it will be a bit like if we take the GCE 'A' level (or is it GCSE now) and changing it to some Singapore-only qualification which is not conveniently recognisable outside Singapore. So people who want to travel to University tradition places to study, will find that they have to either supply a lot of documentation or end up taking the local entrance exam which is... GCE A Level!
How is that a great leap forward.... for social engineering!
Is there a lot of hatred between the indians and local white community in australia?
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