From the "Multiculturism is just GREAT" files.

Shepparton High Shepparton High students.

Foreign GPs blamed for teen pregnancies.
By SUE DUNLEVY
March 9, 2005
Daily Telegraph

EIGHTY per cent of Year 10 girls in a school in rural Victoria are pregnant and their local MP has blamed foreign doctors for the problem.

Member for Murray Sharman Stone said foreign doctors in her electorate were refusing to prescribe the pill to teenagers because they did not believe in sex before marriage.
The Australian Medical Association yesterday backed her concerns, calling for more thorough checks on foreign doctors to ensure they understood Australian culture.
Dr Stone said teachers in her electorate had noticed a significant increase in teenage pregnancies during the recent drought.
"In one school 80 per cent of girls in Year 10 were pregnant, These are 14 and 15-year-olds," the Parliamentary Secretary to the Finance Minister said.
It was an exception for young girls to finish school without becoming pregnant, she said.
"All those girls kept their babies and we now have class after class of teenage mums with bubs," she said.
Ms Stone said the foreign doctors brought to the bush to deal with a severe doctor shortage were partly to blame for the problem.
"Imagine a young Anglo girl going to a GP who hardly speaks English - he's a bloke and he's shocked at the thought of you being 15 and wanting the pill because he's just recently migrated from the Middle East," she said.

More than 70 per cent of the doctors in the Shepparton area were overseas trained, she said.
Many of them came from the Middle East where women were not allowed sex before marriage, they had no idea about the age of consent in Australia and could not cope with the cultural differences here, she said.
The AMA yesterday echoed Ms Stone's concerns.
"I must say there are cultural issues with people coming from a different part of the world with different philosophies about sexual intercourse imposing their views on others," AMA president Dr Bill Glasson said.
"Don't blame the doctors, blame the system that allows them into the country without proper vetting.
"No one has sat them down and said if these young girls are not on the pill you'll have a teenage pregnancy rate that is unacceptable."

Very low levels of bulk-billing among country doctors was also contributing to the teenage pregnancy rate because young girls could not afford to pay to see a doctor, Ms Stone said.
"In Murray you need $50 in your pocket to see a GP," she said.
Teenage boys and girls also found it hard to access contraception in small communities, where the local chemist was likely to know your parents.
Often country chemists didn't even display condoms on shelves, forcing awkward teenage boys to ask counter staff for them, she said.
The teen pregnancy rate in Australia is 4.9 per cent. There were 12,227 babies born to women under 20 during 2002.