Editorial | Funding future medics

Government’s plan to spend some US$1.3 million to fund the education of nearly 50 future doctors will get public support only if people are convinced that this investment will lead to an improvement in basic healthcare and, ultimately, a healthier nation.

This action by the Government is likely to provoke debate on whether the public purse should be financing medical education for doctors whose earning potential and employment prospects are among the best of all graduates. In any event, once trained, the doctor can opt to take his skills to another country or even another industry, at the end of a five-year bond, thus denying the public of his medical expertise. These are valid arguments to consider as allocations undergo greater scrutiny given the current financial constraints and demands on the national Budget.

The heart of the matter is not whether contributing to the training of medics will inure to the country’s benefit but whether there are enough doctors to satisfy the needs of the country and whether the ideal of a healthy nation will contribute to a better country.

Medical school is expensive. Under the current sponsorship scheme, the Government funds 80 per cent of the tuition for 55 students undertaking the five-year Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery programme. In announcing the plan, de facto Education Minister Karl Samuda said US$1.316 million will assist other medical students.

Performance-based assistance

Even though there are scholarships, bursaries, grants, and loans, some students with great potential still come up short. We believe they should be assisted, but we submit that the assistance should be performance based.

Does the country have enough doctors in training to match its needs for medical and specialist care? That question may be answered by visiting the emergency department of any of our public hospitals. There, one can expect to see few doctors on duty, vastly outnumbered by patients camping out on hard benches waiting to be attended to. The wait can last for many hours. Sadly, persons have died waiting to be examined by a doctor.

So yes, the country needs more doctors, especially in the public sector where resources, both human and capital, are thinly stretched. Rural areas, in particular, are believed to be gravely underserved in the area of specialist care.

Daily front-line patient care

Teaching hospitals such as the University Hospital rely heavily on young residents, for while these doctors are being trained, they provide daily front-line patient care, say, in the accident and emergency departments.

The country would be better off if everyone had some college training. But that’s a utopian dream. So policymakers across the country have to carefully consider the future needs and actively encourage scholarship in the areas most vital to development. Medicine, engineering, mathematics education, surveying, and the sciences are among these areas. The question then becomes, if the need is urgent, should Government also fund the training of these other professionals?

Tertiary education is not cheap anywhere in the world. Planned parenthood means that parents, grandparents, and godparents can consider establishing education funds or trusts for their young ones so that by the time they get to university age, they are able to take care of their funding needs. In that way, they do not have to rely on public funding or expensive student loans.

When most people think about healthcare, they are most concerned about cost, accessibility, and quality. If funding the education of more doctors will result in better outcomes for the majority, it will be seen as a good investment of taxpayers’ dollars. It seems that the Government needs to take a long-term approach to training of medical personnel and not merely to respond in crisis situations.