KEY POINTS:
General practitioners might be turning away elderly patients but over-65s are not the only ones being told to go elsewhere for their health care.
As workloads increase, GPs nationwide are not taking on new patients, says Peter Foley, chairman of the Medical Association's general practitioners council.
"I don't know how big the problem is but there is a suggestion it is happening elsewhere [outside of Christchurch]. Certainly, many GPs are closing their books to all-age patients, because of the workload."
On Saturday, the Press newspaper reported some family doctors were turning away old people because they were sicker, usually had multiple problems and often exceeded their allotted 15-minute appointment time.
However, Dr Foley said it was important GPs did not take on more patients than they could handle.
Many GPs already had between 2000 and 3000 patients, far above the 1400 recommended by the Ministry of Health.
"That is only tolerable if you don't have a high proportion of high-needs patients."
Dr Foley said the price for a standard consultation was just that - if the patient's appointment ran over time, or he or she had multiple complaints, doctors were well within their rights to charge extra.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners said it knew some GPs had closed their books but was not aware of any who had explicitly closed their books to any particular age group.
College chief executive officer Karen Thomas said excluding people based on age would be contrary to the idea of general practice.
However, there was an increasing number of GPs who were specialising in certain types of care, such as sports, travel or appearance medicine that would target particular age groups.
Ministry of Health spokeswoman Sarah Turner said the ministry was not aware of any GPs turning away over-65s because they were too much work but would be concerned if that was the case.
Its funding system was designed to take into account the needs of over-65s, who required more visits to GPs than other age groups.
- NZPA
