FOR A long time Australia has had to use overseas-trained doctors to prop up regional health services. Without these OTDs some regional hospitals would have had to close. Regional cities and towns would have to go without vital GP services. Part of the reason for this - before Labor recently increased the number of doctors Australia trains - was we had not produced enough doctors ourselves. Arguably the royal colleges of medicos have been allowed to be too protective of their own career interests over the greater good. Meantime the Australian- trained doctors we did train could pick and choose jobs and most did not want to work in regional areas. So we recruited and poached medicos from overseas, sometimes from Third World countries. A recent article in the Women's Weekly highlighted our hypocrisy. It showed up in the hardline approach the Australian government takes to asylum seekers coming here by boat and what we may lose as a nation in terms of our humanity and more. "From Penniless Prisoner To Bionic Surgeon", tells the story of "a miracle worker who fits amputees with radical robotic limbs". The world-leading surgeon in the story, written by Clair Weaver, "drives a Porsche, wears Italian designer clothes and lives in a luxury waterfront home overlooking Sydney Harbour Bridge. "Patients come from all over the world to go under his knife ..." As Weaver writes, 14 years ago it was a much different story when Dr Munjed Al Muderis arrived wet and exhausted, hauled ashore by police as a refugee. He had fled Iraq after being ordered by Saddam Hussein henchmen to cut the ears off soldiers who deserted. He could not do it and his own life was in danger as a result. Weaver's story tells that the surgeon now rehabilitates soldiers from nations who occupied Iraq and feels a strong desire to give back. At Western Australia's Curtin detention centre, where he spent 10 months known only by his number, he met then Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, who told him he would probably never prove his medical qualifications in Australia. Then followed a meteoric rise put down to his work ethic. The Iraqi surgeon took placements from Mildura to Bendigo and Wollongong and Canberra. He met and married a Russian medical trainee in Lismore and now she is a GP. Weaver writes, where most surgeons have one daily theatre list he has two. A man whose destiny rested with people smugglers when he was crammed onto a boat and ended up treating fellow refugees in churning seas not knowing where they would all end up. This week Australians have seen a photograph of another asylum seeker who arrived wearing the Australian one-day international cricket uniform. He said he was a fast bowler. Reports have made the connection with leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed who arrived in 2010 as an asylum seeker from Pakistan and is in contention for Ashes selection. Not every asylum seeker is a surgeon or potential Australian cricketer but many can become good citizens. This revelation comes too late, but former prime minister Julia Gillard has just revealed she regrets her government's handling of asylum seeker policy. Maybe Clive Palmer got it right when he said smuggler boats should be turned around and genuine refugees allowed to arrive by plane. Mr Palmer said if refugees have papers they should be given a visa to catch a plane here and once they land be dealt with inside 24 hours. If they are genuine they can stay, if not they are deported immediately.

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