Letters to the editor: General practice needs respect and money to avoid GP burnout

The only way to save general practice is respect and money, a reader writes. Photo / Getty Images

Your Monday article on the GP crisis highlights the problem that has been many years in the making.

Ten years ago a workforce survey indicated that half of all practicing GPs and would be retiring in the 2020s.

Successive governments have chosen to let general practice wither on the vine.

In the 1970s the income difference between general practice and specialists was about 30 per cent. GPs routinely provided obstetrics with nearly all doctors delivering babies. Many did part-time anaesthetics and others did tonsillectomies and grommets.

The fee-for-service payment system meant that hard work was rewarded by good income. The nature of this paperwork is often mind-numbing, applying for special authority to prescribe a laxative, baby formula or a food supplement.

Often requesting straightforward investigations requires following a "pathway".

Young medicine graduates appear fully aware of the poor pay (now about a third of specialists') and unrewarding conditions. They are regularly coached by hospital colleagues to denigrate the role and status of general practice.

People can "improve and innovate and implement changes in the primary care sector" all they like, but traditional general practice will not survive without a massive infusion of respect and money.

Dr Ross W Ogle
Cameron Medical Clinic

Lies not found

Your Monday February 28 report on the Memorial Park protest mentioned twice their accusation of "the media lies".

I wish to put on record that as a 40-year reader of the BOP Times I have not come across any article which could be called "media lies".

Rather, I've been impressed by the professionalism and strict ethical standards displayed by your journalists in giving balanced accounts of events they were reporting on.

I believe this is the situation for all of New Zealand's printed Journalism.

Chris Ingram
Tauranga

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