FIVE hundred and thirty-four foreign medical professionals, including 119 doctors, are scheduled to start arriving in this country from as early as next week in order to fill the gaps within the health sector, according to Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Senator Wesley George.

’They are coming in batches and I understand that the first batch would be coming in from Cuba and they would be distributed evenly throughout the regions in all sorts of specialties across the board,’ he said.

George, who said the ministry hoped that within the next five years they would ’have no need for foreign health professionals because our own Trinidadians and Tobagonians would have been trained and registered in every available vacancy in our public health system’, was speaking to the Express after the graduation ceremony for Operating Theatre Nurses at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex yesterday when he made the statements.

Health Minister Jerry Narace however told the Express that these professionals would not be shuffled into the system until they have been assessed and trained according to the rules outlined by the law.

Speaking to the Express via telephone, Narace said even though the number seems large, the group was made up of doctors, nurses and technicians, all of whom are needed to fill the severe shortage currently being experienced in all of the hospitals today.

’We have a huge hole to fill in the health sector as it relates to professionals and all we are trying to do is meet that,’ he said.

In addition to that, the minister insisted that nothing would be done contrary to what an assigned government panel, designed to oversee them, has outlined.

’There are going to be terms and conditions ... and that includes the writing of an English exam and be supervised,’ he said.

Nevertheless, medical students, who spoke to the Express, said they felt shunned and upset over the ministry’s decision to hire the non-English speaking doctors because most of the times they did ’not know how to speak English correctly and were often times unable to understand patients if they did’.

In addition to that, they questioned whether or not they would be given full preference when they graduated.

The minister however, said they had nothing to worry about.

’Our first preference has always been to use the local doctors, but we have a cadre of spaces to full and we have to full them. But these students have nothing to worry about because we have made it clear that all graduating UWI (University of the West Indies) doctors will get jobs,’ he said.

In fact, he said the UWI students, who would have been refused registration in the past, are now guaranteed registration with the passing of the Medical Board Amendment Bill.