Mary Henry (Independent)

I want to mention two points on section 17. I am pleased the Minister has stipulated in the section that, "Only registered medical practitioners are eligible for election as the President or Vice-President of the Council in accordance with Schedule 2." This is important because, while the council has to serve the public interest, it is essential it also has the confidence of the profession.

One area that concerns me as regards lack of representation, however, is the fact that only two people can be nominated from the bodies approved to deliver programmes of basic medical education and training. With the increase in the number of medical schools and the fact the council is taking over much of the work of supervising medical training, those two people will be very overworked. A significant amount of council time will have to be put into this area, given the changes made in this legislation.

As the majority of those currently qualifying in medicine are women, I am pleased the Bill states that the Minister shall, to the extent practicable, endeavour to ensure there is an equitable balance between men and women in the membership of the Council. Women are poorly represented on many regulatory bodies, through no fault of the Minister. In attempting to do this the Minister may end up trying to find five women as the lay representatives. I am confident that when the medical profession is electing people, it will endeavour to ensure this feature is preserved because it is very important in terms of work and training for women. When the graduate medical schools begin to have an intake it will be interesting to note whether the proportion of men to women will be the same. I do not believe it will be. The number of women registering at graduate level will be far higher than the number of men, not that there is anything wrong with that. It will be a fact of life, however, that once women have children, domestic commitments will lean on them to a great extent. It is good the Minister has mentioned this in the Bill.