Shane Reti: New University of Waikato medical school good for all of New Zealand

Shane Reti says while the measures are being proposed outside of Northland, the region will still reap the benefits. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

Recently, Christopher Luxon and I announced a new medical school at the University of Waikato.

This is great news not only for the Waikato but all of New Zealand, with more doctors for Whangārei and Northland.

At the same time, we announced that we will increase the number of existing medical places to 50 each at Auckland and Otago, the maximum number they can currently accommodate.

Whangārei is not alone in suffering sick and injured New Zealanders who are waiting hours in emergency departments, weeks to see a GP and months on surgical wait lists. We know the after-hours service has been reduced at Rawene Hospital for example and that our hard-working doctors across Northland are exhausted. A big thank you to our dedicated health workforce.

New Zealand does not train enough doctors to meet the demands of our growing and ageing population or to replace our retiring health workforce.

If we were going to benchmark to Australia we would be talking about a fifth medical school now and not a third.

We need more doctors in our region and we need more doctors all over New Zealand.

Combining the 100 places at Auckland and Otago with 120 from the third medical school will see an additional 220 extra doctors graduating a year by 2030, compared to just 50 more under a recently announced government plan.

The new medical school will have clinical training alliances with other universities and medical facilities around regional New Zealand – a model that will deliver more doctors committed to serving in provincial and rural parts of the country, such as Northland.

It is possible there are other benefits for Northland and locations outside of Auckland. Currently, there are around 174 students who train at Waikato Hospital each year. Some of these training places will now be taken by future Waikato medical school students. This creates an opportunity to replace those training positions in locations further north including Whangārei, Kaitāia and Thames hospitals and large rural medical centres.

This would need some infrastructure and training support at these locations while at the same time introducing and hopefully encouraging students who become doctors and train in the regions to then stay and make it home.

Increasing homegrown doctors is vital to delivering the public services that New Zealanders deserve and we see this as an essential and long-term investment.

Finally, there are currently 350 New Zealanders training in Australian medical schools many of whom could not get medical school places in New Zealand. Imagine if they were training here supported by their families and whānau and that they then entered the medical workforce here in New Zealand. Now that is what I am talking about.