Patients are refusing to be treated by foreign doctors because of the scandal surrounding an Indian-trained medic who has been linked to scores of deaths, the Australian Medical Association said yesterday.
Foreign doctors have been subjected to racial abuse and rejected by potential patients after it emerged that surgeon Jayant Patel was being investigated over 87 deaths at a Queensland hospital, association president Dr. Mukesh Haikerwal said.
Haikerwal, who was born in India but trained in Britain, said the case had undermined the community's confidence in foreign doctors.
Patients were even refusing to be treated by Australian-trained medics with foreign names, he said. Some 20 percent of Australia's doctors are overseas-trained with the amount rising to 30 percent in rural areas.
"We have a very diverse medical workforce in Australia," Haikerwal said, adding that many doctors were from Britain, India and the Middle East.
Haikerwal has written to the leaders of all states and territories urging them to promote the processes through which they grant foreign doctors credentials to prevent a backlash against overseas medics.
Australian police have launched a global manhunt for Patel after an inquiry recommended that he be extradited to face trial for murder, criminal negligence, fraud and making false representations.
RSS