The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, will join the Australian Medical Association Tasmanian President, Dr Jon Davis, and the Tasmanian University Medical Students’ Society President, Max Milaney, to call for job security and certainty for all graduating UTas medical students.

Mr Wilkie said that all medical students graduating in Tasmania deserved the certainty of a guaranteed placement at the end of their medical degrees.

Mr Wilkie welcomed Health Minister Michelle O’Byrne’s announcement on Saturday 27 July that all Commonwealth supported medical students would be guaranteed internships, but said that the same guarantee should be extended to international students keen to stay on in Tasmania.

“There is a real shortage of doctors in Tasmania which is having a growing impact on health service delivery,” Mr Wilkie said.

“But Tasmania is lucky to have a great wealth of quality medical students, including international students, with the potential and desire to fill that gap.

“There is a real risk that if they don’t have employment certainty here they will instead find jobs interstate or overseas and their skills and expertise will be lost to Tasmania.

“The situation in Tasmania is part of an ongoing national medical internships crisis caused by a range of factors. This issue has now become ensnared in the tangled web of state and federal responsibilities for health training and delivery.

“I call on the federal government to establish a national guarantee for all medical students graduating in Australia to be given appropriate internships.

“At the end of the day this is about achieving national health outcomes, and only a nationwide approach can do that.

“Not insignificant is also the role the University of Tasmania plays in the state’s economy, and the importance of it remaining competitive in the international marketplace.

“Quite simply, foreign fee-paying students will study elsewhere unless UTas offers as good a package as mainland universities, including guaranteed internships.”
Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Denison