Booking in to see general practitioner is set to get even more difficult in years to come, and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) says action needs to be taken now to help a workforce in crisis.
A report commissioned by RNZCGP showed there were 74 GPs for every 100,000 people. (File image) Photo:
RNZCGP is calling for more medical students to be trained up as GPs and warns the wider health system will bear the brunt of the pain if people cannot get to a GP in timely fashion.
Motueka's Greenwood Health closed its books to new patients a year ago because of a shortage of GPs.
Clinical manager Naomi Rosamund said they had hoped that would only last a couple of months, but in fact the pressure had only become worse.
"A lot of that has to do with the fact that we haven't been able to recruit GPs but we have lost GPs through retirement and family reasons.
"So we've lost a number of GPs, not been able to replace them and we just don't see any other avenue except external recruitment to New Zealand, because we have tried our darndest to get local GPs to join the practice."
Rosamund said there was now more than 500 people on their waiting list.
A report commissioned by RNZCGP showed there were 74 GPs for every 100,000 people, much lower than in Australia with 116 per 100,000, and Canada with 122 per 100,000.
Compounding matters further is half of current GPs plan on retiring in the next 10 years.
College president Samantha Murton said the profession did have an older age base and not enough was being done to encourage medical students to consider becoming a GP.
"The students don't get a chance to see what the environment they will be working in will be like before they leave a hospital and go into that environment and then support for students in terms of their pay. If you're a registrar in a hospital and then you go out to be a registrar in the community, you take a pay cut."
Dr Murton said the implications for the depleting number of GPs were serious, with more people ending up in hospitals if conditions escalated.
Auckland University Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences deputy dean Warwick Bagg said increasing the cap of medical students at the university from 257 to 300 would also help ease the pressure.
"We're also very interested in a concept we've been talking about for sometime, which is a national school of inter-professional rural health, where we combine with other universities to deliver rural health general practice training, as well as other multi-disciplinary training.
"So there are a number of things we could do and that we've been arguing for for sometime which we believe could enhance general practice training."
New Zealand Rural General Practice Network chief executive Grant Davidson said the shortages were already particularly pronounced in the rural areas.
"Many are delaying their retirement simply to make sure the community has some sort of health service still," Davidson said.
"Others are stressed and burnt out and some are leaving and just abandoning their practices and either retiring or heading to urban areas where it is easier to make a living and have a work life balance."
Dr Davidson said there was talk of a rural education pilot when David Clark was Labour's health minister but nothing had happened since he lost the role.
In Cheviot, GP Anthea Prentice runs a sole practice with two part-timers helping her out.
She said both her part-timers were near retirement age and she dreaded to think how she would manage when they leave.
In a statement, Minister of Health Andrew Little said there was no doubt the country needed more GPs.
Little said the government would fund as many people who applied to train as GPs, and last year there were 210 first-year GP trainees, the highest number there has ever.
He said he had received the RNZCGP workforce report and was considering its findings.
