Denied residency

[normie]

There is one thing that I have not yet got my head around for refugees from conflict zones. These refugees clearly want to live in a free and peaceful society and hence try to move to another free nation that is at peace, but at the same time wish to retain their own culture and ultimately would like to live in their own nation.

So why is it that they do not fight for freedom in their own nation? The opportunity to do so is available to them, these are not totalitarian nations. I don't intend this as a critisism, rather I find it a genuinely interesting question of human behaviour as to why?
ie have they lost hope of success? or do they consider the risk to their own families to great,
Somehow I think the answers would tell us alot about their lives.

Dear Cowboy,

Love your sentiments- but personal experience ( from working in the field) has told me that a lot of these people fight for their lives on a daily basis to get fresh water, something to eat ,somewhere to sleep for the night - a lot, but NOT ALL!

I'm fed up with the jaquals that claim 'severe hardship' just to get a chance to exploit our aussie egalitarian "fair go" ethos- It literally takes all types- that includes refugeees- there are legit ones and there are the dodgy nigerian bussinessmen type, there are persecued minorities and there are those who know how to manipulate the heart strings.

These people are desparate and see Oz as the land of milk and honey- they will use boat or plane- thankfully we are an island and dont have bus loads of frauds trying to get in!

thoughts are going quicker that the typing hand....

Oh well put my two shekels in, now to get on with the inevatable mid life crisis.... and more beer

[fulvio sammut]

This may sound like I'm up myself, and maybe I am, but may I congratulate you all for the insightfulness, understanding and decency that you have brought to this thread.

Sometimes we can take ourselves too seriously, as I often do, but the opinions I have read above justify why I continue to visit here.

Thanks.

[gustafsl]

If there is such a shortage of doctors especially in the country. Why don't more people get into the profession?

I think what it comes down to is the fact that our wages at the bottom end of the scale are pretty high, so there is not as much added benefit in going for the better job.

I'm not sure exactly how long it would take in school to be a fully qualified doctor, but I'm thinking at least 8 years. My own uni for marketing costs $8,000 a year. The undergrad in whatever you need to be a doctor would be a bit less because it is deemed as a priority, but the med school would probably be very expensive. So lets say you lived at home the whole time, you'll probably still be $50,000 + in debt by the time you are done. And you don't have a home, aren't married, no kids etc... But maybe you become a fully qualified doctor by age 30.

Contrast that with doing a TAFE course in business admin. 2 years, about $1,500 a year. You could be done by age 20 and not have a single cent in debt. You could take that certificate and get a basic entry level office position and make $45,000 a year. By age 30 you may have moved up a level and are now on $50,000. Probably have started paying off a house, married, kids etc...

So the doctor is roughly ($500,000) behind the office worker at age 30. And hasn't even started to think about a family.

Now I'm not saying that doctor's don't live good lives. I'm yet to see a poor doctor. And obviously by the time both these people retire the doctor is going to be way way way way ahead of the officer worker. But when you look at it like that, especially when you are 18 and just out of high school. It seems like a lot of effort to become a doctor when you could just get an office job and make decent money.

[frontrow]

And then there is the mining industry were 6 figure incomes are the norm for anyone who can drive a truck....

[shasta]

You make it sound like he was snatched in the night with a bag over his head. Odd's are he would have applied to come here, when the guys down at the Immigration Department saw he was a doctor they probably fast tracked his application. Would you prefer he ended up in the US or Britain? At least he is here making a differance here. Who are you mad at more? the Government for granting him a visa or the nice Doctor for applying for it to begin with?

Jeez jargs, how you can draw an inference like that from "pinching" doctors from Malawi is pretty interesting. He probably did agree to come here and no reasonable person would blame him. Why you would think that from reading my comment is a mystery. But that does not justify a systematic approach where our government actively recruits from those countries while doing little or nothing to make medicine & nursing an attractive option for young Australians. That's an unjustifyable and embarrassing cop-out. IMO. The financial burden of training medical perofessionals for a country like Malawi is one far more onerus than is the case here. For them to train these people only to see them leave must be incredibly frustrating for those left to cope.

And no, I would not rather he ended up in Britain or the US. I'd prefer they pulled their weight too so it would not be happening at all. Then doctors or nurses could apply to come here and do so on merit if they choose.

[gustafsl]

The financial burden of training medical perofessionals for a country like Malawi is one far more onerus than is the case here. For them to train these people only to see them leave must be incredibly frustrating for those left to cope.

Most likely the doctor in Malawi trained at a school in the UK, France, USA etc...

Most likely the financial burden was carried by the doctor or some aid agency that sponsored him to go to school in those other countries in return for working a certain number of years back home.

[laura]

Also another reason for the lack of doctors is the uni cut-offs. If you stuff up at school in year 11 and then year 12 decide you want to be a doctor you only have a slim chance of getting in. Year 11 results count for you even graduating.
A girl I went to school with got A's in everything but she because of scaling her TER wasn't high enough to get her into medicine. Obviously you have to intelligent to get in to medicine but surely if there is a lack of doctors the requirements could accomodate to allow a few more people in to the course, I mean there is not a great difference between 94.8 and 95 TER, there needs to be some flexibility.

Not to mention the cost of it all, my degree is no where near as hard as anything mildly medicine related but I'll still be about $25,000 in debt by the end of it and thats if I don't fail anything and have to repeat units.

8 years to complete a medicine degree is also not really an exciting prospect for many kids straight out of school and the fact that its so full-on and would pretty much require your devoted attention for the whole 8 years, and limit your earning prospects during that time. And that's only in this country, others are much worse and don't even have a sufficient education system to allow someone to graduate high school let alone attend a university, or have the financial backing to support any of it.

I'm not saying make medicine an easier course or let any Tom, Dick or Harry do it, but there definately needs to be allowances made if this country or any other is going to be able to have enough doctors in the future.

[shasta]

Most likely the doctor in Malawi trained at a school in the UK, France, USA etc...

Most likely the financial burden was carried by the doctor or some aid agency that sponsored him to go to school in those other countries in return for working a certain number of years back home.

If that's the case, fine. But most likely it's not the norm. This problem has been around for a long time. Most likely lots of Australians are not aware what effect this is having in Africa. I Googled this article in about 2 seconds after i read your reply. It's a bit old but most likely the situation is getting worse.


LILONGWE, Malawi: Here in my country, ten people die of AIDS every hour. About one million people are infected with HIV out of a population of some 12 million. Our government is working hard to try to slow down this epidemic: We have an extensive voluntary counseling and testing program and hope to treat as many as 80,000 people with antiretroviral drugs by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, there is only so much we can do. One of our biggest obstacles,which many nations on our continent share, is a shortage of health care workers.

More here
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/07/news/edntaba.php

[jargan83]

Then doctors or nurses could apply to come here and do so on merit if they choose.

which is what he probably did, was judged to have a skill that is currently desirable and was approved to migrate to Australia.

Would you prefer the Immigration Department turned around said "No your needed there, we can't take you" despite his application (and I dare say desire) to move to Australia

Most likely the doctor in Malawi trained at a school in the UK, France, USA etc...

Most likely the financial burden was carried by the doctor or some aid agency that sponsored him to go to school in those other countries in return for working a certain number of years back home.

and upon that time expiring he probably filled out an application to come to Australia and as above was seen as having a skill that was desirable

[shasta]

Would you prefer the Immigration Department turned around said "No your needed there, we can't take you" despite his application (and I dare say desire) to move to Australia

You haven't understood what i've said, I think. No offence meant jargs, but your question is piontless. I would prefer our Government shouldered the responsibility of training enough Doctors & nurse here, whatever that takes so they don't need to recruit from places where they are desperately needed.. I feel strongly about this issue and nobody will change my mind. I'm leaving it there now.

[Darren]

I would prefer our Government shouldered the responsibility of training enough Doctors & nurse here

I'd be surprised if many felt differently (expect perhaps for doctors/nurses OS wanting to come to Australia)

[jargan83]

You haven't understood what i've said, I think. No offence meant jargs, but your question is piontless. I would prefer our Government shouldered the responsibility of training enough Doctors & nurse here, whatever that takes so they don't need to recruit from places where they are desperately needed.. I feel strongly about this issue and nobody will change my mind. I'm leaving it there now.

you made it sound like he was headhunted to come to Australia,odds are he made an application to come here that was judged on its merits

Regardles of what the Government actually does to fix the shortage, there will always be migrants (skilled or otherwise) wanting to leave where they're from. Good on them for attracting them to Australia instead of another country

[Cowboy]

There's nothing wrong with people wanting to retain their own culture - there seems to be a perception amongst some people that to embrace the culture of your new country means abandoning your old culture, when one should really enrich the other.

I think a good example to answer you question is Jose Ramos Horta - when East Timor was under Indonesian control, he fled the country but that didn't mean he abandoned it. He continued to fight for the country's independence.

It's very easy from our (innacurately) cosy experience of the world to ask questions of refugees like that but, seriously, if you have to choose been staying and fighting against the regime or making sure your children even have a future I don't think that's such an easy point to argue. At what point do your values overtake the welfare of your loved ones?

Sorry, if that's sliding a little off topic.

I completely agree with what you have written. I think that my question is far more subtle than it may appear, so I will try to use a modification of your example.

While East Timor was under Indonesion control Jose Ramos Horta became a refugee, and for quite obvious reasons (risk to loved ones, little chance of sucess). However once East Timor became independant he returned and has had to show courage and been exposed to genuine risk since independence, it remains a volatile situation. So my question in relation to him is what changed? Is it that the perception of level of risk changed or is it that the chance of making a real difference to his nation and people made taking the risk worth it?

The thing that stands out to me about the conflicts affecting Islamic nations currently which are of a urban/guerrilla nature is how one sided they are. In most other conflicts in the past the extremism of one side ends up being matched by the extremism of another (a quote that comes to mind is that of an Irish protestant terrorist when asked why they didn't only target IRA members replied that normal catholics were much easier to find). This does not appear to be happening in the Islamic nations and my questions are purely aimed at trying to understand why?

I know this touches some difficult topics, but ultimately by doing so all I'm trying for is to understand.

[Cowboy]

Also another reason for the lack of doctors is the uni cut-offs. If you stuff up at school in year 11 and then year 12 decide you want to be a doctor you only have a slim chance of getting in. Year 11 results count for you even graduating.
A girl I went to school with got A's in everything but she because of scaling her TER wasn't high enough to get her into medicine. Obviously you have to intelligent to get in to medicine but surely if there is a lack of doctors the requirements could accomodate to allow a few more people in to the course, I mean there is not a great difference between 94.8 and 95 TER, there needs to be some flexibility.

Not to mention the cost of it all, my degree is no where near as hard as anything mildly medicine related but I'll still be about $25,000 in debt by the end of it and thats if I don't fail anything and have to repeat units.

8 years to complete a medicine degree is also not really an exciting prospect for many kids straight out of school and the fact that its so full-on and would pretty much require your devoted attention for the whole 8 years, and limit your earning prospects during that time. And that's only in this country, others are much worse and don't even have a sufficient education system to allow someone to graduate high school let alone attend a university, or have the financial backing to support any of it.

I'm not saying make medicine an easier course or let any Tom, Dick or Harry do it, but there definately needs to be allowances made if this country or any other is going to be able to have enough doctors in the future.

Yes, but if we train too many how will we possibly be able to charge the hourly rate were currently at