Australia may not grant immigrant visas to doctors

If Australia's health department’s suggestions are followed, then doctors born abroad would not be issued any more work visas. This move is likely to hit Indian doctors adversely, among others. The Press Trust of India quotes media reports as saying that seniors in the Australian medical community had urged the federal government to halt granting visas to doctors trained abroad as the current migration programme was not addressing medical skill shortages in interior Australia. Expressing the same concern, the Department of Health is said to have made an official submission for revisions to the immigration rules. The news agency cites that the department had stated that locally trained doctors would find it tough to get jobs if the immigration rules were not modified. The department has reportedly suggested removal of 41 health roles from the skilled occupations list. Included in these are resident medical officers, general practitioners, surgeons, anaesthetists, among others. The proposals to curb visas have been supported by the Australian Medical Association and Rural Doctors Association. Immigration Department figures revealed that there were 2,155 general practitioners and 1,562 resident medical officers employed in Australia on work visas at the end of March 2016.