Docs needed for peace mission

THE goodwill of Australia’s doctors is again being called upon following a United Nations decision to send peacekeeping forces into Sudan’s Darfur region.Foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer recently revealed plans to send a team of civilian doctors and nurses to assist the peacekeeping mission in the area, where at least 200,000 people have been killed in four years of conflict.

“We will have to recruit people... to take up that task, but I’m pretty confident there will be quite a lot of Australian doctors and nurses who would willingly participate in this support for the peacekeeping force,” Mr Downer said.

No further details were available as MO went to press, but West Australian GP Dr Judith Findlay said she was considering volunteering.

Dr Findlay, who provided medical aid in Indonesia following the Yogyakarta earthquake last year, was also due to travel to the Northern Territory later this month to help with the federal government’s Indigenous child health checks.

However, not all doctors could afford time away from their practices, she said.

“There is a base of GPs that are interested in doing this stuff... but I think it is more of a logistical issue – you can’t always just drop everything... and your patients.”