Yes, I have given it a name. You can blame the DemocraticUnderground side of me for adding the "gate" to it.
The reason for me doing it is simple; this is big news happening when an election is about to be called here in Australia. Which means this is something that just might bring the Howard government to its knees. As in Watergate is what brought Nixon down.
The latest round in the latest Australian immigration political storm is Kevin Andrews letting us know he is bemused by it all. And of course he has Pauline Hanson applauding him. But I would like to remind Kevin about what happened to the last immigration minister. Only this time, in stead of the immigration minister being given a cushy job as Ambassador to Italy, he will be given the boot by the Australian populace, along with the rest of this government.
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Queensland Health Crisis
I am 47 year old born and bread Ozzie woman, who has been thrown around from doctor to doctor for 3 years, until last year a foreign qualified specialist in Caboolture Hospital sorted out my problem with one visit and 4 weeks wait on the operating list! We need to stop bitching about the foreign doctors. The understaffing of the hospitals is not due to lack of posts, but to the doctors' reluctance to work for Queensland Health. The draconian and authoritarian way QH and its subsidiaries are run determines a large number of doctors, mainly specialists, resigning and looking for better human relations in Health. Foreign doctors with tons of experience and more often much better trained than our own Austalian doctors, are treated as if they are poorly trained, and used as scape goats to show the public that QH and the Medical Board of Queensland "care". They don't care, they just want to make a show of doing their job! District directors and managers are singling out foreign doctors to make an example of, excessively monitoring them, harassing them and bullying them. In the meantime, local doctors' mistakes and botched treatments are covered and hushed. Australian trained doctors have quite low general knowledge, and are scared and without panache. In the last year 3 specialists-gynaecologists have resigned only from the Redcliffe-Caboolture Health District, locums finish their stint in disgust and never come back, and the management continues it's policy of harassment and bullying under the pretext of "look how vigilant we are!" When will the Medical Board of Queensland stop investigating pathetic complaints, and start investigating those who complain?
E.N., Caboolture
Agree totally with the 47 year old born and bread Ozzie woman. My wife and I migrated to Australia/Brisbane in search of a better life. We had good upbringing, higher education and sincere intentions. I (angineer) was luckier. My wife (specialist doctor) regrets coming here. She has been put through the most bizzare situations: started a PhD here and some admin people made her scrub the floors of the lab every day; then managed to get employed at a hospital where she worked hard day and night for several years as a registrar. Her supervisor kept telling her she cannot be good enough as she is a foreigner and therefore harder to integrate. She got verbally abused, bullied very often, scheduled to work night shifts for months in a row when australian consultants (which were on call) did not answer her calls for advice/oppinion so she had to wear the risk and decide on tough matters. Always monitored, always checked by Qld Med Board, always treated as she was some kind of fraud. After long and hectic nights I used to pick her up and drive her home and she could barely concentrate and could not stop crying in the car. After years of frustation while the press and politicians went on and on about how bad the foreign doctors are she succesfully passed an exam and is on the right path to pass another. Patients send her cards and ask for her, bring her flowers. And now the Qld Medical Board office people changed the rules again imposing shorter time limits by when foreigners must pass the exams. When you try calling Qld Med Board on the telephone they rarely answer and then you finally get to talk to a person who reads the answers to you from their website and has no advice for you.
We never ran away from hard work but I have never seen my wife so down and so desperate.
All we wanted was to work hard, earn respect and be treated fairly.
We wish we could go back in time and make another decision, never left our home land.
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