‘Tears flow every day’: Calls grow for more rural medical training

Clinicians cry every day because of the pressure they face Staff shortagesaid a rural health care manager.

He is one of those who are eager to see Rural medical training More programs.

Dave Ireland, who runs GP practices and health clinics in Dannevirke, Pahiatua, Woodville and Norsewood, said he had only half the staff he needed for his 14,500 patients.

He said clinicians are working 20 hours of overtime a day to keep up.

“My staff often cry because of this situation and they sometimes feel like they have let the community down.”

The operations manager at Tararua Health Group said three long-serving rural GPs had retired in the past 18 months and he was unable to find new staff.

He said that while there are many medical students being trained in the region, not enough are being trained.

“For example, this year we have no registrars coming here through the college, which makes it really difficult to attract people to rural GP practices and community events and sustain them, which is really difficult.”

Research from the University of Otago shows that Rural immersion training are five to six times more likely to return to rural health care.

The university offers 35 rural immersion training places each year as part of its six-year medical degree, and this year the New Zealand Ministry of Health has funded an additional 10 places, where small groups of students will train in rural hospitals for 12 months.

Auckland University will launch a rural immersion program for 15 students next year.

Otago University’s acting dean of medical school, Professor Tim Wilkinson, said rural medical students paid twice as much as standard medical students.

He wants to increase enrollment in rural areas but says that depends on the government removing limits on the number of medical students it can admit.

“We know what to do to increase the number of people interested in rural areas, we know what to do and how to do it. We just need to be allowed to do it,” Wilkinson said.

The University of Waikato The Third Medical College 120 medical graduate students can be enrolled in four years.

A university spokesman declined to comment to RNZ. Business case for medical school still under review Collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

But vice-chancellor Professor Neil Quigley told RNZ in May that after a year on campus, students would spend two years doing different placements in regional and rural centres, as well as taking part in a full year of immersion courses.

“Our plan is not to send thousands of students to Hamilton for eight years and then tell them at the end they can go and practice medicine wherever they want. Our plan is to have them study here for a year and then have them work where we have the capacity to train them.”

They are now considering establishing a training centre outside the Waikato region.

Wanganui District Mayor Andrew Tripe said he had been in talks with Waikato University about running the program in his district.

“Medical students in their final years come to Whanganui and work as GPs in regional and rural New Zealand, and some prefer that – they don’t want to go to the big cities, they want to live in the regions and they realise the lifestyle is often much better than in the big cities.”

Dr Sarah Clarke, national clinical director for primary and community care at Te Whatu Ora, said local government had an important role to play in encouraging young rural doctors.

“We really want the community to step in and help them, find the right jobs for their families, find the right jobs for their kids, get them on local sports teams,” Clark said.

Clark, who is also a rural doctor at Kaitaia Hospital, acknowledged there was a lack of adequate health workers in rural areas but said measures were being taken to change that, including increasing funding for rural enrolments at medical schools and providing an extra $9100 grant for people training to become GPs who lived within 30 kilometres of a rural clinic.

“I think we need to see more of the same, I think there’s a lot of good things happening, we’re seeing the pipeline grow, we’re seeing people who were our students come back.”

But she said that while people were mainly trained in big cities, the vast majority built up connections while growing up, making it difficult for them to move to rural areas.

She said she had no opinion on the prospect of a third medical school.

“I think it doesn’t really matter to me how we train more people who want to work in rural areas, more doctors who want to be GPs. It doesn’t really matter to me whether it’s a third medical school or whatever, I just want to recruit a few more colleagues.”

RNZ asked Health Minister Dr Shane Reti for an update on when the business case for the Wickatoro Medical School would be completed, but no specific date was given.

The minister also would not confirm whether he was considering increasing the number of medical degree places at the universities of Otago and Auckland.

“The Government recognises the high quality of education provided by the Universities of Auckland and Otago and the significant contribution they make to medical education in New Zealand.

“Under the National and ACT Coalition agreement, we committed to complete a cost-benefit analysis for the proposed medical school at the University of Waikato and the Department of Health is progressing this work with the support of key stakeholders.

“I hope the Ministry of Education will work with the University of Auckland and the University of Otago throughout this process.”

At Dannewick, Ireland said a solution seemed too late and too far away.

“Obviously, the medical schools are saying they’re going to increase the numbers. But where we are right now is that these things should have been done 10-15 years ago.”

Ireland said the stress of finding employees has been weighing on him.