2021 Budget to cater for five-year medical doctor programmes

The PPP Government’s 2021 Budget will cater for five-year scholarship programmes to train doctors to ensure hospitals are better staffed.

This is according to Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton who made the announcement during a meeting on Friday last with doctors at the Linden Hospital Complex. The meeting addressed a decrease of doctors in the region over the last three years. This is due mainly to doctors being sent to hinterland communities.

Minister Hamilton explained that the practical solution would be to train more young persons to become doctors.

“We have 900 people doing the job of 1,200. I can say to you pellucidly that the practicalities in the 2021 Budget will put mechanisms in place to ensure five-year scholarship programmes can start.”

“We ensured that every single person from Region Ten [who] was trained, we sent them back to their region to work … And now we have a problem, because when doctors were leaving, the previous Government was not training,” the Minister said.

Minister Hamilton also said consideration would be given to sourcing doctors from overseas to serve in the region. (Extracted and modified from the Department of Public Information)