First-year students wanting to pursue studies in the medical field will have to fork out for tuition fees.

The Tertiary Scholarship and Loans Board says they will not be forking out for anyone wanting to take up MBBS and dentistry.

Since 2014, the Fijian Government has been allocating adequate funding for the purpose of training doctors, oral hygienists and dentists to meet the World Health Organizations’ requirements for the doctors to patient ratio of 1 doctor per 1000 people.

TSLB Chief Executive Bobby Maharaj outlining the reason for this cut.

“What we have noted is currently we have about 900 general practitioners in Fiji. We also have 790 students who are still in Years 1 to 5 of that studies and another 105 who are likely to graduate this year so by the end of the year, we will have over a thousand doctors and another 790 are still between the years 1-5”

At the Fiji National University, each individual has to fork out around $89,000 for six years to complete a Bachelor of Medicine.

For a dental degree, it costs around $78,000 for five years.

FNU says so far a total of 260 applications have been received for MBBS while 70 applications have been received for oral health studies.