Health minister to consider funding for more GPs

Pete Hodgson

Health Minister Pete Hodgson says more funding for training general practitioners was "worth looking at" following the release of a report showing GPs were leaving their jobs in droves due to stress, frustration and exhaustion.

Figures released today by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) revealed a stressed and diminishing general practice workforce ageing faster than it was being replenished.

Forty per cent of current GPs said they planned to leave their job within the next five years.

Mr Hodgson told National Radio this morning the report was an important one but needed to be put in context.

"For example, GP numbers have gone up by about half since 1980 . . . GP workforces are ageing around the world because GPs don't enter the workforce until later -- they have more training."

However, Mr Hodgson said more funding for training GPs was "worth looking at".

"At the beginning of last year we did increase the number of doctors being trained by 40 so the total is now 325 per annum," he said.

RNZCGP president Dr Jonathan Fox told National Radio this morning many GPs had simply had enough.

"They use words like 'stressed', 'burnt-out', 'frustrated' and 'exhausted'," Dr Fox said.

"When we've compared the amount of time a GP spends face-to-face with patients and then the amount of time they have to do on administration, the extra administration has increased dramatically over the last few years."

Dr Fox said a study was needed of bureaucratic and compliance cost issues confronting GPs, most of whom were self-employed and would like a better work-life balance.

He said it was good Mr Hodgson had acknowledged there was a problem.

Three more reports were due out soon, Dr Fox said.

"We need to immediately increase the number of general practitioner training places and we also need to look at the number of medical students going into medical schools," Dr Fox said.

Scholarships aimed at encouraging Maori and Pacific Island doctors into general practice were stopped by the government this year for 2006.

"Maori and Pacific Island populations suffer an increasing health risk, yet these populations are proportionately under-represented in the GP workforce," Dr Fox said.

In the past two years the college had received more than double the number of applications for the 54 funded places on its training programme.

The survey showed that on average, male GPs worked 54.8 hours a week, with female GPs working 38.9.

Dr Fox said the population of New Zealand was growing, ageing and becoming more ethnically diverse, and based on current assessment of health needs the changes would impact directly on primary care and the work of general practitioners.

"We must stop the numbers drain now, or in 10 years the problem may be insoluble," he said.

- NZPA