Board spends $2m on locums

EXPENSES: Wairarapa DHB human resources manager Gretchen Dean said locums were contracted to fill short term gaps.

Wairarapa District Health Board spent nearly $2.5 million on locums last financial year.

Acting chief executive Craig Climo said 80 locum doctors worked for the DHB during the financial year. They filled positions in acute care, anaesthetics, general surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology. They also filled orthopaedic, paediatric and physician positions.

The locums provided an average of 6.18 full time equivalent positions each month.

They cost the DHB $2,450,101 for the financial year including $2,040,564 in salaries, $173,034 in agency fees and $236,504 in travel costs.

Wairarapa DHB human resources manager Gretchen Dean said locums were contracted to fill short-term gaps.

They generally needed to be available at short notice or already practising so most locums were contracted from within New Zealand.

The DHB recruited them through agencies or from a pool of locums who enjoyed working in the area.

Ms Dean said locums could be recruited to cover for leave. Generally the DHB would not contract a locum long term while it recruited for a permanent vacancy but would instead employ somebody as a fixed-term employee.

Locums from within New Zealand were police checked and safety checked.

The Medical Council and Immigration would check qualifications and appropriateness of overseas locums, said Ms Dean.

DHB figures showed 36 permanent doctors worked for the DHB last financial year. They cost $7,695,480 and filled 27 full time equivalent positions.

New Zealand Medical Association chairman Stephen Child said permanent workforces offering continuity of care in the regions were the "holy grail". However, that was hard to achieve in small regional centres where there was not enough of a workload to recruit some senior specialists and locums filled vacancies.

He said paying permanent doctors more was not the answer to the locum issue, as more money did not necessarily make employees happier.

Dr Child said autonomy, feeling rewarded and work life balance were all things that made staff happy. If a doctor had to be on call all the time, as they might be in a regional centre, they would have no work life balance.