Incentives would draw GPs to rural practice

Eight times as many doctors would consider working in country areas if better incentives were offered, a study shows.

The study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, found 63 per cent of doctors would be "more likely" to go into rural practice if the right incentives were offered. About 8 per cent of respondents were considering entering rural practice.

Rural GPs Network chairman Tim Malloy said rural New Zealand was about 100 GPs short, which meant far too many people were travelling long distances to visit a doctor.

The study cites poor pay, high workloads, medical and social isolation, lack of holiday or study leave cover, lack of career options for partners and school opportunities for children as reasons for the shortage.

However, it found that less on-call work, guaranteed time out of practice, and consideration of partners and children could lure doctors out of cities.

The study showed 29 per cent of doctors would never go into rural practice, while 8 per cent planned to do so with or without incentives. The remaining 63 per cent said they would be more likely to go into rural practice. With incentives, 15 per cent of these were "very likely" to do so.

The study said doctors needed more rural training, as 75 per cent felt their training was either inadequate or barely adequate for rural practice.

"At the end of the day it only takes one thing to stop people entering rural practice ... You even have to address the difficult things like spouse employment," Dr Malloy said.

One way of doing this would be to accept that many doctors would not want to stay in rural areas for 20 or 30 years, he said. Five years would be more realistic and the workforce structure needed to be adjusted for that.

Dr Malloy said the Government had to start addressing key issues, such as helping rural GPs to pay for locums if they needed study leave or a holiday.

The network was also working with the Health Ministry to recruit rural locums from England. He said that scheme would soon be widened to include permanent positions. However, more funding was needed.

A spokesman for Health Minister Annette King said part of the Government's $400 million in extra primary health funding was going towards rural health initiatives.

- NZPA

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