Late Friday night, the House of Representatives passed the Medical Board (Amendment) Bill 2003 to allow the Government to register doctors and pave the way for the recruitment of Cuban doctors, following the lead of the Senate.

Minister of Health, Colm Imbert, summed up the Opposition's contributions to the debate as being a bundle of contradictions. He said in most countries of the world the Government had some role in registering doctors to practise. Imbert slammed former junior minister of health, Dr Fuad Khan, saying: "He wants to maintain an elitist system, his cronies, a cabal to control the registration of doctors...But in the United States, registration is totally controlled by politicians."

Challenging Khan's advice that it was cheaper for the Government to rent X-ray "time" from the private health sector than itself to buy new X-ray machines, Imbert said Khan was a part of a private hospital in Tunapuna, saying: "People must declare their interests...That's a conflict of interest!" Imbert questioned former minister of health, Dr Hamza Rafeeq's suggestion the Government should recruit doctors from just familiar countries like India and Nigeria as done in the past. Imbert said the Medical Council had registered doctors from 57 countries including Hungary, China and Egypt, and that it now intended to bring doctors from Cuba and through the United Nations.

Replying to the Opposition, Imbert cleared the air on the validity of the qualifications of Dr Hugo Des Vignes and Dr Chandu Lall, challenged in a big profile court trial. Imbert scoffed at the former UNC administration, saying that after it had tried to discredit Des Vignes' certification, it had then employed him as a forensic pathologist at the Forensic Centre, whereas Dr Chandu Lall had been found to have purchased a degree on the Internet.