The government has an issue with hiring doctors into the public service due to a limited number of positions available.

This was highlighted by the Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, in the Virtual Public Budget Consultation after a medical student asked to bring back scholarships for new MBBS students.

Sayed-Khaiyum says the current financial situation needs to be considered as government revenue after the pandemic has been reduced by 50%.

He says that the government will look at various mechanisms to assist students who have achieved toppers marks after the economy recovers.

“We already had that in mind to be able to provide the funding once we had the capacity to be able to fund MBBS because we know that some people don’t necessarily go into the public sector immediately.”

Speaking from Singapore he said that students with toppers marks studying other science subjects will be able to cross-credit to MBBS if the government continues the funding in the new financial year.

The National Toppers Scholarships and Tertiary Education Loan Scheme for MBBS and Oral Health was suspended earlier this year.

The suspended programs were listed under the national priority areas of the Fijian Government since the start of the NTS and TELS in 2014.

They were included to ensure that Fiji had an adequate number of trained doctors, oral hygienists and dentists.