Medical students complain of brain drain

Medical students yesterday voiced their concern at the number of doctors leaving the island, saying that up to 20 of the 55 final-year medical students plan to leave after their graduation, exacerbating the medical brain drain.

The Malta Medical Students' Association said working conditions were causing more doctors to leave the island, which, in turn, increased the workload on the remaining staff. Some doctors were working 30 hours straight and going back to work the next day for another 30 hours.

It said the authorities did not seem to recognise the urgency of addressing the brain drain or were reluctant to take any constructive measures.

"It is a shame for our country to have a top-notch medical school and a modern general hospital only to lose brilliant young Maltese doctors to foreign healthcare systems," the association said.

It called on the Medical Association of Malta and the government to intervene to provide better working conditions for doctors and introduce the promised specialisation training.

In Parliament last night, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Joe Cassar referred to this sticky point saying that for the first time ever, Maltese graduate doctors would specialise in Malta.

Continuing, the students' association said that despite an agreement between the government and the MAM, promising accredited training from last January, many specialities were still without a stable training infrastructure.

"Such a delay begs the question of whether the training will be implemented at all in the near future and is one of the main, justifiable reasons why people are leaving the NHS for greener pastures. This means that even doctors who have completed their first two years in Malta are choosing to go to the UK and start from scratch in order to be able to start their specialised training."

It also accused MAM of covering up the government's shortcomings, urging it to work together with the authorities on concrete and sustainable solutions to keep doctors from continuing to leave the island.

When contacted, MAM president Martin Balzan would not comment on the accusation but said the government had set up the specialisation training and issued calls for new posts.

The students complained that the pay rise promised to junior doctors was miserly, with the basic salary quoted at about €15,000 (Lm6,500), less than a third of the €44,000 (Lm19,000) paid out by the NHS in the UK.

"Working on a basic UK NHS salary, together with guaranteed, black on white, yearly increments, means that in your second year as a doctor you will be earning more than the most senior doctors in the Maltese NHS."

Despite the attraction of British hospitals, data from the UK's NHS shows that young doctors have some four per cent chance of getting into further specialised training because there are 900 posts and some 23,000 people apply for these posts.