Sir, – Matthew Glover (Letters, August 12th) remains under the illusion promoted in opinion letters many times that medical students are especially expensive to taxpayers and should be indentured servants for this sin.
He might be surprised to learn that according to a government report, “Medical education in Ireland: a new direction”,– the most recent on the matter that I could find – in 2002 the average cost of training per year per medical student (in NUIG, UCC, UCD and TCD) was €8,367.
This compares favourably with the CSO figures for the cost for third-level students in general, which in 2003 was €10,539.
This cost is further offset by fees charged to non-EU students which in 2002 provided 53 per cent of medical school funding – making training medics an absolute bargain.
Would it be too facetious to suggest that if Irish doctors were to go about “reimbursing the expense of their training” to the tax payers that funded it, emigration to Malaysia or Kuwait (our biggest benefactors in terms of non-EU medical student fees) would be mandatory.
– Yours, etc,
Dr NEIL BARRETT
Waterford.