New school of rural medicine prescribed

A new school of rural medicine will be established within the next three years to produce more doctors for remote and hard-tostaff areas, the Government has announced.

The school will be geared toward meeting the challenges in high needs and rural areas, and will produce around 60 additional doctors per year, Tertiary Education Minister Paul Goldsmith said yesterday morning.

The decision follows two joint business cases – the first from the University of Waikato and Waikato District Health Board, and the second from the medical schools at Otago and Auckland universities.

The announcement has been welcomed by both sides, but one man behind the Waikato bid said the 2020 deadline would be ‘‘a stretch’’.

‘‘Whether it’s Auckland/Otago or us, any curriculum still needs to go through the Medical Council approval process, which took at least two years,’’ said Waikato University’s professor of population health, Ross Lawrenson.

The Government will run a contestable business case process to consider the options.

The successful applicant should be known in 2018, and the school would be up and operating ‘‘no later than 2020’’, Goldsmith said.

But Lawrenson added: ‘‘I’d say 2021, 2022 would be more likely.’’

Of course, it would come down to who won on election night, the academic said.

National and Labour have made announcements about improving general practice, but both initiatives would require more GPs, Lawrenson said.

‘‘We hope whoever wins will recognise we do need to do something, particularly with highneeds communities.’’

The Waikato proposal would train recruits at Waikato Hospital then fan them out to 15 rural education centres around the central North Island, while the Auckland

"It really is going to reinvigorate rural health in New Zealand."

Dalton Kelly, of the New Zealand Rural GP Network

and Otago proposal would have trainees based at 20 rural hubs nationwide.

The cost to Government – and the taxpayer – would be finalised through the business case process.

The Government’s contribution would be met through a combination of existing tertiary funding streams as well as future operating and capital budget allowances.

The Waikato proposal was seeking government funding of about $300 million over 10 years, which included the cost of training extra house officers to train recruits.

It’s understood the Otago and Auckland proposal would cost under $50m, as it would make use of existing infrastructure.

‘‘We are confident of being able to show that a proposal which builds on the country’s two existing world-class medical schools will be the most efficient way to address this issue,’’ said Auckland University’s vice-chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon.

Waikato DHB chairman Bob Simcock said its proposal with Waikato University was ‘‘fundamentally different from the Auckland and Otago bid, in that it is for a community-engaged programme’’. This would mean forming a partnership with health providers, the communities they serve and Maori partners he added.

The New Zealand Rural General Practice Network (NZRGPN) had thrown its support behind both proposals.

Chief executive Dalton Kelly said it was no coincidence the announcement came less than a month before the election ‘‘but I don’t care – I’ll take it any time’’.

‘‘It really is going to reinvigorate rural health in New Zealand,’’ Kelly said.