More than half of future doctors who would graduate this year have already been accepted to do their housemanship in British hospitals.
The president of the Medical Association of Malta, Martin Balzan, said 35 of the 50 students in their last year at the University plan to leave the island once they graduate.
This follows another bad year - 15 of the 50 doctors who graduated last year never worked in Malta. Contacted yesterday, Dr Balzan said the association was informed that another 20 of last year's group have been accepted to work in British hospitals and plan to leave the island in July.
Statistics tabled in Parliament last Monday showed that about 13 per cent of doctors who graduated between 2003 and last year were no longer employed with the government on a full-time basis.
Answering a parliamentary question, Health Minister Louis Deguara said 223 of the 256 doctors who graduated over the past five years were still working in Malta and all were full-time employees with the government.
Dr Balzan however insisted such statistics did not show the full picture. Newly-graduated doctors used to do their two-year housemanship in Malta before leaving the island, normally for Britain. The UK changed its system last year and started recruiting doctors who had just graduated.
Previously, doctors would apply to enter the UK's training system after three to four years working in Malta.
In addition, the agreement just signed between the government and the MAM was mainly oriented at the more senior medical practitioners and so would not entice new graduates to stay here.
Dr Balzan said the association was having talks with the authorities to find a solution to this problem, which could lead to a lack of young doctors in the local health system. As a last resort, the government should employ foreign doctors from other EU countries.
The MAM has long been saying that Malta is suffering from a brain drain of doctors which was creating difficulties for the health service. A study conducted by the association in 2006 showed that over 62 per cent of hospital doctors registered by the Malta Medical Council between 1994 and 2003 left the island, with only 9.1 per cent having returned since.