What will happen to those graduating in the coming years?
This was the question raised by Fiji Medical Association president Ronald Kumar as about 200 intern doctors remain without postings despite completing their training.
Dr Kumar said the growing backlog was creating uncertainty not only for current interns but also for future medical graduates.
“Now concerns are about a two-year internship program, which has rapidly turned into a two-and-a-half-year program, and this is for people who graduated two-and-a-half years ago,” he said.
While reforms have been undertaken to review the internship program, he said, the current system was still not providing answers for doctors waiting to enter the workforce.
“I know FMA and the Ministry of Health has done a lot of work to re-look at the internship program.”
“I don’t think it provides answers for the current lot of doctors.”
He said the situation was difficult to understand, especially given ongoing doctor shortages in rural and remote health facilities.
“We do understand that the rest of the world is struggling, we are not alone.”
He said posting doctors to health facilities would help address the shortage of doctors.
He was responding to comments made by Health Minister Dr Atonio Lalabalavu, who said the ministry had sought exemptions to hire new staff following a recruitment freeze linked to rising fuel prices.
Dr Lalabalavu said the issue had already been raised with the Office of the Prime Minister and the Public Service Commission to allow exemptions for critical healthcare workers.
He said the ministry had specifically requested exemptions for newly graduated nurses, doctors and other much-needed health workers to ensure services were not affected by staffing shortages.
