22
Wednesday, October 16, 1974
The point I wish to make and I will be returning
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to it in connection with other major programmes
is that
this programme has been prepared in a way which will enable
us to go forward in an orderly series of progressive and
inter-related steps year by year, with each step costed and
given its priority. The scale of this programme has been
based on the best assessment now possible of the resources
likely to be available. It will be subject to regular review
each year starting in 1975. As well as indicating what we
hope at present to be able to achieve, the plan also provides
guidelines within which flexibility can be applied according
to rational priorities if necessary, and if more or less
resources are available than seem likely now, or if the needs
of the Medical and Health Services change, as to some extent they
are bound to do over a ten year period.
Before leaving Medical Services, however, I should
like to say something of one or two areas in which the Government
has now become more directly involved.
Unregistrable Doctors
The question of non-Commonwealth medical graduates,
the so-called Unregistrable Doctors, has aroused lively public
interest. We should not under-estimate the complexity of some
of the issues involved however simply and forcefully they may
be argued by their protagonists. What we now need is
authoritative unbiased advice on which the community can rely.
/I am sure