Mauritius has been plagued by a number of scandals in the last few years especially in higher education and the magnitude of these scandals has been such that a number of committees were hurriedly set up to investigate the nature of the problems. Are we any wiser on the conclusions and recommendation of the various reports or were they another political ploy to fool the public?

The first drama unfolded with aspiring doctors being asked to take a preregistration examination without the syllabus being made available to those taking part nor were they informed of the date of the examination. Of those who took the examination, three failed, complaining that the papers were too tough and geared to medical students of India. Following an extensive protest and advice from the State Law Office, it was decided to register all those students (including the three who had failed the examination!) with the Medical Council to allow them to practise in Mauritius. So, we have at least three doctors who have failed the preregistration examination practising in our hospitals. How safe are we?

● This was only the beginning

DY Patil Medical College was found to be allowing Post Graduate students to practise in Mauritius when they were not registered with the Medical Council. We will never know if they have put patients’ lives at risk or worse. I suppose Mauritius being Mauritius, anything and everything is possible.

● The list of scandals continued to grow

The University of Technology (UTM) was awarding a Degree in Medicine when it did not have a Faculty of Medicine. Without a Faculty and expertise in Medicine, I wonder who was devising the syllabus, monitoring the progress, assessing the performance and doing the implementation and evaluation of the courses. When the Board/Council of UTM agreed to award the medical qualification, were the members not aware that UTM did not have a Faculty of Medicine?

The Tertiary Education Commission, which is responsible for the planning, funding and implementing of tertiary education in Mauritius, is not any better. Its Director was the President of the International Monitoring Committee which oversees medical training in Mauritian institutions but he did not take any action. Faced with these scandals, the Board of the Tertiary Education Commission hurriedly set up a Fact Finding Committee to be chaired by a retired judge of the Supreme Court to investigate and find answers. The public is still not aware of its findings.

● And the scandals went on

Students who had invested four years of their valuable time for a degree in Pharmacy were refused pre-registration by the Pharmacy Board to allow them to undertake the mandatory practical year to become fully- fledged pharmacists. In short, the certificates obtained by the students were not worth the paper they were written on. According to the regulatory body of the pharmaceutical profession, the degree was not recognized because it had never endorsed the syllabus and the University had never informed the professional body of the contents of the course.

● There was more to come

 Vijaya Samputh was appointed head of the Centre cardiaque de Pamplemousses under very controversial circumstances. The Minister of Health Mr Anil Gayan who had appointed her as Director when he was Minister of Tourism, ratified her appointment. Of course according to him there is no controversy as Vijaya Samputh is not a ‘marchand cotto mili’. As I write, the Trust Fund for Specialised Medical Care is having discussions on these very issues.

If you think you have heard the last of the scandals, you could not have been further from the truth

If we are to go by the local press, doctors have been recruited by the Ministry of Health. Normally, this is cause for great jubilation. The hick is, again according to the  local press reports, all those recruited are close relatives of Ministers and these new recruits had finished their internships very recently. It looks as if that those who completed their preregistration earlier and had been waiting and do not have the right connections have been overlooked. No valid reason has been given to those 500 doctors or so who have been patiently waiting for an opportunity to practise.

Moreover one cannot help wondering why these new doctors were recruited by the Ministry of Health. Normally, it is the responsibility of the Public Service Commission (PSC) to advertise, interview and select the best candidates for government jobs. What is the rationale and justification for bypassing the PSC?

Also, let’s not be fooled by the two-year contract being offered to these new recruits. After two years, when there are vacancies, who will be given a contract position: with the newly acquired experiences they are bound to be selected for permanent positions? Who will dispute the selection?

There is no arguing that the recruitment of the 60 doctors was very unfair and raises a number of questions and clarifications: On what basis were the candidates recruited? Why were candidates who had finished their internships earlier not selected? What were the competencies being tested? Why was the PSC bypassed by the Ministry of Health? Who decided that the PSC should not be involved in the recruitment? Why just 60 doctors were selected? Who decided on this number?

Presently it is not unusual to find qualified doctors working at call centres or selling ‘dholl puri’ while others are desperately trying their luck abroad. But the latter is not easy. In the case of the United Kingdom, the applicants have to sit and pass PLAB1 and PLAB2 before they can register with the Medical Council. It’s a pity there was no prior planning. The government at the time could have made arrangements  with Universities like London or Bordeaux so that these institutions would have awarded the degree and not the University of Mauritius. These arrangements would have enabled our doctors to apply for jobs without the need to sit further examinations. Is it too late to negotiate such an agreement, bearing in mind there are 500 trained doctors who are unemployed and more and more are being trained and would be coming home disappointed?

Shouldn’t the government provide advice and guidance  on the appropriate courses our students are envisaging to undertake?  Is it fair, right and morally acceptable that someone completing five years of university study and two years of practical training has to register as being unemployed? And  adding insult to injury, they are overlooked because they are not related to Ministers! Obviously while the world is marching forward, Mauritius has remained in the era of whom we know and whom we are related to.

What choice do these doctors have? Is there a solution to this crisis? With so many doctors on the dole and the number likely to increase further, my humble recommendation would be to study the National Health Service model of the United Kingdom. We have the money or at least this is the impression we are giving to the outside world.

Otherwise, how come our ministers, permanent secretaries, directors and the like are chauffeur-driven in big limousines? Our chairmen and chief executives are also not doing badly either. While our Prime Minister is flanked by three deputy Prime Ministers, our ministers all have several advisers.

Compare this with the UK system. The British Prime Minister has only one deputy Prime Minister while senior ministers are chauffeur-driven in  ordinary saloons. Permanent secretaries, directors, chairmen and chief executives don’t get any government car, let alone duty free facilities.

There is no disputing the fact that there is money but the government should look into rechanneling it to benefit the public that elected it. We also have dispensaries in each town of the country. Is it a big task to convert all the dispensaries into local general practice surgeries? Converting these dispensaries into surgeries would have an unprecedented and most beneficial impact on the Mauritian health service: (i) Each resident will have a personal doctor who would be familiar with the patient’s illness and treatment, (ii) Patients will not have to travel far to see a doctor, (iii) Queues will be shorter in the hospitals giving doctors more time for examination, diagnosis and treatment and (iv) Employment of all the unemployed doctors and the creation of other jobs at the surgeries.

The current government promised to create around 75,000 jobs but will it really be for all of us or will it be just for the boys? The latest recruitment drive suggests that the scandals we have been facing will linger on and on and will not have a happy ending. But there is a solution if only the ministers adopt a fairer approach. Will they? This is the billion dollar question.