Issue 204
Lack Of Doctors Needs Cure
The Issue
A newspaper article revealed that patients are waiting months for the most urgent operations. Hospitals have blamed it on a lack of qualified doctors and nurses.
The Debate
"The problem is that there just aren't enough incentives to enter the medical profession," says Doctor Alexei Longbottom. "We need to advertise government grants for medical students, give more funding to educational centres of medicine. If you don't act quickly then Emperor Matthuis will have a full-blown healthcare crisis!"
"Nah, it's just that we don't have the numbers of graduates or young doctors needed to fill the gap before we have a 'crisis'," says Elizabeth Clinton, leafing through pages of statistics. "The best solution is to recruit doctors from abroad. If we snag 'em from the poorer countries then we won't have to spend half as much as grants would cost us."
"Or we could NOT waste money on bringing foreigners into the country," grumbles Aaron Longfellow, a wealthy businessman. "And giving money to the students? How many of them do you think will stay the whole course, hmm? How many Quillys are we going to burn on this? Our healthcare system is great, there are thousands upon thousands of nations that would give their right province for what we have. I think we can afford to let go of some of that funding and give the good people of Emperor Matthuis a tax break, don't you?"
