December 17, 2004

Medical Student Fee Rise Is Deplorable – New Zealand First

“The series of decisions which have lead to the 10% increase in fees for doctors at the University of Otago are deplorable,” says New Zealand first education spokesperson, Brian Donnelly.

“Far from these fees being increased they should have been significantly decreased,” said Mr Donnelly.

“Medical students should be treated as a special case. Firstly, because of the capped courses, only the cream or our young people obtain access. Secondly there is a significant public good factor in the training of doctors. Thirdly the years of training to be a doctor are considerably greater than for other degrees.

“If we continue down our present pathway we will end up with our GP’s imported from third world nations. All our locally produced doctors will need to specialise to pay back their student debt.

“Treating doctors as a special case would cost the country very little. We seem to be able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sing-a-long courses and can’t find a couple of million in order to train our doctors without forcing them into penury.” Said Mr Donnelly

ENDS

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