KOKIRI Trust CEO Christine Brears. PHOTO SUPPLIED
RECRUITMENT of GPs to rural areas is a huge challenge, according to Kokiri Trust chief executive Christine Brears, who has worked at it for years.
“Locums come and go and you’re covering their [additional] costs of mileage and accommodation, but at least they are within the country,” Christine said.
“I was talking to a friend in Hamilton, a fellow health administrator, who had brought three doctors over from England, and she said ‘why don’t you do that Chris’. I said, well, at the end of the day it’s the same thing, you’re paying from $22,000 to $30,000 in recruitment fees to get them from there to here but that’s just the start.
“When you get them here you must provide the house, the car and more often than not, they’ll only work four days a week. By Friday, they’re off having time off around the country.
“They’ve signed up for two years but within that time there’s time off for training development, conferences and, of course, annual leave.
“If they get sick, that’s more time off, so how many months are left from all of that to be working in Taumarunui?
“In the first year they’re supposed to be building relationships with the wider community, but I’m not sure that happens. Because when you come to the second year, it seems to be a case of ‘play it again Sam’. Except that it turns out that while they were tripping around the country, they saw places more attractive to them. So soon it’s ‘goodbye rural’ and off they go.
“Where they tend to stay longer is when they come with little children, so what better place to bring up little children than in Taumarunui, with excellent day care, low living expenses and five-minutes-drive to work. This group may be inclined to stay three or four years.
“But soon, hello, it’s high school time and they’re looking around for where the best colleges and universities are, so once again it’s ‘goodbye rural communities, we’re off’.”
Christine said the reality of recruiting GPs to work in town made her a big fan of online consultation. She gave the hypothetical example of a woman feeling unwell, who did not have a car.
The woman phones her provider and requests an appointment with the doctor.
Initially a qualified medical person called a ‘navigator’, calls to triage her and the next day she talks to a doctor online (by phone or by video call). The doctor has access to her files and asks about another medical issue.
The doctor writes out a script, say antibiotics, for the first issue and reminds her to come in for, say, a urine test, for the other one.
“We’ll contact the clinic and see when they can have a nurse available for your urine test, when will you be available to go?
“Well, I can go in at 2pm this afternoon.
“Fine, I’ll organise that for you.”
The woman gets her ride downtown and there’s the nurse waiting for the urine test and anything else that’s needed.
“Then she’s home again. But she’d called (under the old system) and asked to for an appointment to see the doctor she would have been told, “sorry there is a six week wait”.
