The Premium Debate: Subscribers weigh in on GPs under pressure

Course costs should be free for medical students says one subscriber. Photo / Getty Images

Bay of Plenty general practitioners say GPs could collapse under “relentless pressure”. An association of GP owners has launched a campaign to address what it says is an uneven distribution of healthcare in New Zealand. To resolve the problem, governments could look to bring down university course costs - or eliminate them - so that doctors don’t need to charge expensive patient fees to recover their debt or for people to take better ownership of their health, writes Luke Kirkness.

Read the full story: Luke Kirkness: People need to take more ownership of themselves

Have your say by going to bayofplentytimes.co.nz and becoming a Premium subscriber.

I agree that people should be taking more responsibility for their health. It is well proven that you can not exercise, smoke, and eat fatty takeaway food frequently, and expect to be healthy.

- Anthony W

Your proposal to make doctor university course costs free is spot on.

New Zealand needs 300 more doctors in 2023, so government could announce now that the first 300 to sign up as training doctors will have all course fees halved and when qualified and sign up to work in New Zealand for a minimum five years, will have the 50 per cent paid, fully refunded.

- Gary C

On the scale of the history of disasters that have occurred in New Zealand, the Whakaari/White Island eruption was right up there in terms of the loss of human life. Many questions remain as to why there is no government-sponsored inquiry into the Whakaari/White Island eruption and the response, says former information technology manager with the NZ Fire Service Alan Thompson.

Read the full story: Alan Thompson: Why no inquiry into Whakaari tragedy?

An inquiry would undoubtedly find the people died because they got in the way of an erupting volcano. Erupting volcanoes tend not to give notice of precisely when they intend to erupt, but the good folk at GeoNet did send fairly good warnings in this case. As to whether those warnings are taken heed of is an entirely different matter, but one has to assume cruise ship passengers are of normal intelligence and capable of doing their own risk assessment. So the issue then boils down to whether the cruise operators misled their customers on the risks and that will certainly be the subject of ongoing litigation. A finding will then emerge without the expense of a Government inquiry that will only find out what we already know - people should stay away from erupting volcanoes.

- Colin J

- Republished comments may be edited at the editor’s discretion.

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