People are waiting longer to see their family doctor as
workforce issues and underfunding stretch General Practice
services and place them under threat.
The country’s
General Practice clinics have united behind their
association, GenPro, to today launch a campaign
‘Save Your Family Doctor Service’ highlighting the
significant issues facing family doctor
services.
GenPro Chair Dr Tim Malloy says a lack of
funding, workforce shortages and increasing workloads are
affecting the sustainability of General Practice. This is
putting avoidable pressure on the rest of the health system
and directly impacting the health of patients.
“It
means in lots of places around New Zealand people are
waiting weeks to see their family doctor, as General
Practice clinics are reducing their hours and reducing
services,” Dr Malloy, a Wellsford GP and Distinguished
Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General
Practitioners, says.
The campaign includes a petition
asking for more resources to support workforce, fair pay and
funding issues, as well as billboards to help the public
understand how serious the situation is. GenPro has outlined
concerns in an open letter to the Minister of Health, Hon
Andrew Little.
GenPro has also released a discussion
document ‘On The Brink’ outlining the stark
reality for family doctor services and a 9-point plan which
would ensure patients, whānau and communities will be able
to rely on their family doctor service in the
future.
“Our essential local nurses and doctors have
been undervalued and underappreciated. They have had enough,
and patients are at risk as we face an unprecedented exodus
from the service.”
Dr Malloy says General Practice
has been struggling with historic underfunding and is also
struggling to attract staff, as doctors no longer want to
specialise in General Practice and, like nurses, are better
paid if they choose to work in hospitals or in
Australia.
“The situation is dire. We received a
real-terms funding cut by the Government on July 1 this
year, and most members feel they have shouldered increased
demand, expectations, regulation and compliance and are now
also ‘footing the bill’ for increased
costs.
“While the Government is investing billions
in new health bureaucracy, it has lost focus on essential
front-line services which keep people well in their
communities.”
He says the most recent workforce
survey, completed in 2020, found more than one-third (36%)
of doctors plan to retire in the next five years and more
than half (58%) of GPs plan to retire in the next 10 years.
Forty-three percent of family doctors are aged 55 years and
older.
“It is incredibly concerning that half our
doctors are planning to retire soon and there is no plan in
place to replace them. Until primary care doctors and nurses
are paid as much as their overseas and secondary colleagues,
General Practice will be in crisis.”
Dr Malloy says
incentives are urgently needed to make General Practice a
career of choice again for our medical graduates and more
attractive to overseas professionals, students and to retain
existing doctors and nurses.
In Tairawhiti, Three
Rivers Medical Centre provides essential services to almost
20,000 enrolled patients. General Manager, Michelle Te Kira
(Ngati Porou), says it is unacceptable that doctors are
being forced to provide services to the most vulnerable
populations on the ‘smell of an oily rag’.
Based
in Gisborne, approximately 50% of patients enrolled with
Three Rivers Medical are Māori and Ms Te Kira, who is also
on the Board of GenPro, says, “We face significant
challenges because of the significant underfunding and the
gaps in the general practice funding model. The methodology
used to allocate funding is flawed and confusing, and we are
being presented with more complex patient needs that cannot
be solved in a 15-minute appointment model.
“It is
critical we have well-funded and appropriate family doctor
workforce levels to ensure we can deliver adequate services
and safe, high quality primary health care.”
GenPro
was formed in 2020 to address the decline of General
Practice and ensure that sustainable, viable and
high-quality family doctor services continue to be provided
for all New Zealanders. Its members include more than 400
General Practices and Urgent Care providers across the
country providing essential font-line services to
approximately half of the country’s enrolled
patients.
Visit www.saveyourfamilydoctorservice.nz
to learn more and sign the petition.
On The Brink:
Saving New Zealand’s family doctor service can be
downloaded from the GenPro website here: https://www.genpro.org.nz/docs/nov2022onthebrink.pdf
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