GPs take action ‘in despair’
Many general practice clinics are in ‘‘despair’’ over the lack of government funding and doctor shortages which are affecting patients, a Southland GP says.
However, the Government says funding of the sector has exceeded inflation, more GPs will be trained and doctors are being recruited from overseas.
Deborah Johnstone, a specialist GP at the Gore Medical Centre, has spoken out about her concerns.
She is encouraging the public to support a petition organised by the General Practice Owners Association (GenPro) which has launched a campaign to ‘‘fix’’ the sector.
Johnstone, a board director of GenPro which represents about half of the general practices in New Zealand, said the campaign was seeking fair pay for doctor teams, a bigger GP workforce and fair contractual terms for private family doctor businesses.
She said a lot of general practices had been facing the same issues for 20 years, with ‘‘successive governments taking inadequate action’’.
‘‘It is not really a place of anger any more, it is almost a place of despair [for general practices] and that is concerning.’’
The Gore Medical Centre had 4.8 fulltime equivalent GPs but needed another two for its 8000 patients, she said. Ongoing efforts to recruit two more GPs had failed.
The centre’s patients had to wait at least two weeks for a routine appointment to see their GP.
‘‘We are struggling to accommodate patient demand ... we can’t take on any more patients, we just don’t have the number of GPs.’’
As of June, 32 general practices in Otago and Southland were not taking any more patients, meaning longer waiting times for patients, she said.
Among its demands, GenPro was calling for an increase in the number of doctors being trained, and the removal of barriers for overseas-trained doctors and nurses.
Johnstone said GPs were paid about 25% less than Health NZ doctors for the same hours worked and nurses in general practices were paid 8% less, set to rise to 15% less next year.
About half of GPs were set to retire in the next decade and a ‘‘massive workforce crisis’’ was looming, she said. Given this, more investment in the training of doctors was required, and increased funding was needed for general practice providers so GPs and nurses could be paid on a par with their DHB counterparts, allowing more to be recruited and retained, Johnstone said.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Andrew Little said the Government had increased funding for GPs for cost pressures by $106 million over the past two years.
‘‘On top of that, over the past 10 years (and including this year), increases to funding for GP services has exceeded inflation.’’
It had never been easier for healthcare workers to come to New Zealand, thanks to the changes to immigration rules this year, Little’s spokesperson said.
GPs were on the greenlist, and 65 had so far applied and 26 had arrived, while GP practices were actively recruiting from overseas.
The Government was also working with the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners to increase the number of training places for medical graduates training as GPs, from 200 a year to 300 a year, the spokesperson said.
‘‘We are also improving the pay and conditions for GP registrars to encourage them to pick up that option.’’
Johnstone, however, said the average GP practice was running at a 7% loss and the Government’s latest funding increase of 3% was well short of the 7% inflation increase.
Gore Medical Centre practice manager Susan Jones said the GenPro campaign to retain and increase staff was timely.
‘‘There are simply not enough doctors being trained to keep up with the demand GP practices are under.’’