Australian International medical graduates will have to pay their internship costs themselves.

International medical graduates in Sydney protested on 21 Oct at Taylor Square Darlinghurst, to express their concerns over the disagreement between federal and state governments on who should pay for their internships.

As suggested by the Australian federal Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek, international medical students should pay their year-long internship costs. If this is the case, those students might have to go home with incomplete qualifications and individual debts of $300,000.

Those students have to leave Australia not because they are not qualified but because no one wants to pay for their internships. This would cause a ‘catastrophic’ for Australia’s international education business which is worth of $16 billion a year with about $84 million from medical students.

According to dean of medicine at University of Sydney, Bruce Robinson, there were more complaints about 2500-plus foreign trained doctors imported to Australia yearly compared to local trained doctors. So more investigation needed whether Australia should invest in international medical graduates by paying them internship-fees rather than importing foreign trained doctors.