The Editor, Sir:

It is interesting to note that you have focused your editorial ('Rethink UWI subsidies', Nov 28) on one side of the story. It is a fact that doctors are leaving at an alarming rate, causing a significant brain drain.

Your editorial would, however, make for more interesting reading if it had given even passing recognition legitimate reasons doctors leave this country.

Whereas I agree with you that to whom much is given, much should be required, for the benefit of the giver, the story cannot and should not end there. An analysis of the root causes of Jamaican doctors migrating may prove equally informative.

Time to do better

Consider this: remove the subsidies, opt for a medical school of "the well to do" and imagine if this would benefit the country more or less. I am sure you will agree that the number of students entering through that door would be very few.

The solution to a bad situation need not be a worse situation. It is time we offer well-reasoned responses to problems and not attempt to multiply them.

As someone who has benefited from the skewed subsidies to the medical faculty and who has stayed in the Jamaican system, I say to you, do some homework, and present a more balanced view.

I am, etc.,

Country Doctor