Clark says immigrant doctors can help regional shortages

Immigrant doctors could be the solution to shortages of skilled medical staff in the regions, Prime Minister Helen Clark said in Marlborough today.

In Blenheim for a one-day campaign visit, Miss Clark was confronted with local concerns over the loss of services at Wairau Hospital.

The hospital has trouble recruiting and training staff and is losing core services to Nelson.

Miss Clark said she appreciated that regional hospitals had a tougher time than their city counterparts getting staff.

"Often it seems to me that without our immigrant doctors we have trouble staffing them," she said.

The "goods news" was that 45 immigrant doctors had been through a bridging course and would soon be able to join the workforce.

The next group to go through that course would be presented with specific bonding arrangements "so we can direct them to shortage areas", she said in a local radio interview.

Some of them had to work at menial jobs such as driving taxis.

"They came in with no way to upgrade their skills, we have given it to them," she said.

Blenheim was made aware of the prime minister's visit when she emerged from the radio station to the sound of frantic blasts on a car horn.

A white pickup truck bearing the banner Lynda Scott for Marlborough and festooned with blue balloons was the source of the noise. Dr Scott is National's Kaikoura MP.

The scruffily dressed driver hurled coarse insults across the road at Miss Clark and Labour's Kaikoura candidate Brendon Burns as they hurried off to their next appointment, a newspaper interview.

He followed them down the road at walking speed, tooting his horn.

Dr Scott's electorate office said it would have been totally out of character for the driver to have sworn because he was a Methodist.

- NZPA

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