Manpower

(The gangsters' meeting continued.)

"We need more doctors."

"Don't be silly. We won't have more graduates until 2014. But, by 2017, we would have loads of them, and the pendulum would be back to the worry of having unemployed medical graduates!"

"Shall we hire some from overseas?"

"Alas, the problem is more complicated than what you think."

"Well, yes, our friends in the medical council are all against the idea - and for obvious reasons. They always say we should hire more part-time doctors. What a suggestion!"

"Some of them do pretend to apply to help for the out-patient clinic, but that's quite beyond the point. What we need are doctors to do the ward round and on-call duties."

"But, going back to the plan of employing overseas doctors, it's not only our friends in the medical council blocking us; our lovely extra-terrestrials are putting hurdles just as much."

"What hurdle?"

"Quite simple. Let's say an overseas applicant has some training in internal medicine and wish to apply for a post in our department. For sure we are eager to accept. However, aliens outside the solar system come to the conclusion that our emergency department is more in need of manpower, and insist that new employees must spend their first 6 months in the A&E. That's quite enough to put off the applicant."

"In that case we should never try to improve our service - we should actually make it worse, so that we would be regarded as in need and get more resource!"

PS. For those who were also in the gangsters' meeting, you may not be able to recall some of the conversations I outlined above. That's entirely expected.

I dozed off in the middle of the meeting and had a nice dream.

Well, maybe not such a nice one.