Khan calls on Medical Board to level the playing field

In a release, Khan said it was not surprising to learn that some 150 medical graduates are unable to find employment.

He said while graduates who conducted their studies through the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus are registered with the Medical Board to practice their craft at private health institutions after only one year of prerequisite training, those persons who may have studied at regional or international institutions are required to serve three years of prerequisite training before being granted the same rights.

Khan said as a result of the budget cuts which occurred at the Ministry of Health in the early part of 2016 the Regional Health Authorities were forced to reduce the intake of these returning medical graduates.

“As such, these persons are now in a precarious position wherein the public health institutions are not able to accommodate their prerequisite training due to their capacity, and therefore these persons who are academically qualified to practice medicine are being prevented from doing so due to this antiquated and inequitable rule,” he said.

Khan said it was “discriminatory and injurious” to the medical field to have so many trained and certified medical professionals unable to practice their profession due to a regulation that is meant to give preference to persons who have studied at UWI, St Augustine.

To level the playing field, Khan said the Board needs to either reduce the number of years for their pre-requisite training to match that of UWI graduates; or, allow these persons to acquire their training at private health institutions.

He said by removing the constraint for graduates to conduct their prerequisite training at public health institutions only they are given a better opportunity to fulfil the requirements for registration with the Medical Board by training at the private health institutions and earning a wage.

“But as long as the Medical Board continues to prevent these citizens from acquiring their registration, based solely on the basis of where they studied, this is not only a disservice to these graduates but to the entire nation who are suffering due to the decline in health care delivery that results from this,” he said.