XN000022-1974-10-16 — Page 66

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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