Professor Matthew Sadlier:

There is a huge international deficit of healthcare workers and doctors in specific. I am pulling this out of the deepest parts of my brain but I think the global need is something around 20 million and I think there are 13 million doctors. That is a World Health Organization estimate, which tends to be a bit idealistic at times, if you know what I mean. However, that would be the number we are looking at. There is a huge global deficit.

The Senator is right to say, and the World Health Organization also has a very strong position on, the brain drain from the developing world to the developed world. There are a couple of schemes we run, such as the international medical graduate training initiative, IMGTI. Where I work, we take doctors from Pakistan who are near the end of their training in Pakistan. They come here, complete training and the majority return back home with expertise. There is an element where some of the doctors we bring in from the developing world are here to learn skills in the same way that our doctors for many years travelled abroad to other countries that might be more scientifically advanced than ourselves. There is an element of that but there is also an element of doctors who come here and stay here.

Those are the numbers I have. I will pass on to Dr. McNamara, who may be able to inform the Senator a little more on some of those issues.