KEY POINTS:
New Zealand will have fewer, and lower quality, medical students within a few years if research funding doesn't increase, the country's two medical schools believe.
The country is haemorhaging health staff, facilities and research, because its health research funding is up to 12 times lower than other countries, they say.
The stark assessment comes from the deputy deans of Otago and Auckland universities' medical schools.
In a release to be made public today, the deans plead for an immediate increase in Health Research Council funding of 20 per cent, followed by 30 per cent rises annually for five years.
They say the council's funding, $63 million this year, is effectively 25 per cent lower than it was three years ago, as salary increases and increased research costs have not been matched by extra funding.
Australia has increased its health research spend by 15 per cent per year since 2000 - but New Zealand has been increasing its spend by less than 6 per cent, Auckland University faculty of medical and health sciences deputy dean Professor Ian Reid told the Herald yesterday.
That has left 85 per cent of funding applicants turned down.
Research was more important than wages to senior medical academics - those responsible for training new doctors, he said.
But filling vacant positions was already very difficult, and was getting harder as prospective professors realised they would not be funded to do research here.
"We're facing a situation where we can't actually recruit decently qualified staff in our medical schools. This is already a significant problem. The recruitment of senior staff into our medical faculties is already a major headache for us."
While the Government decided to increase medical student numbers from 325 to 365 last year, actually training the extra students would prove difficult, he said. "It's almost impossible for us to train the increased numbers if we can't fill the vacant positions in the two faculties. What matters to incoming doctors is whether they can be research active here. If not, they won't come."
There was a feeling among academics that research funding in New Zealand was too focused on economic outputs, he said. That belief failed to take into account the true impact of low funding.
"For those that want to be academically active, having your whole research project shut down when you can go to Sydney and do it there, it's not very appealing. And the bleeding of senior staff to Australia will only accelerate if this [research funding] gap increases."
The situation would, over the next two years, force more of the current health workforce overseas, attracted by other countries' higher levels of funding and facilities.
"We're very concerned a number of our most promising 40-year-olds are going to be in Australia in the next 12 months. And they are our next professors."
Australia's medical training industry was expanding rapidly.
And it was actively recruiting New Zealand's "brightest and best", Professor Reid said.
WHAT WE SPEND
Health research spending, per capita
* New Zealand $10.20
* Australia $34.60
* United Kingdom $54.30
* United States $126
[figures provided by universities]
WHAT THE PROFESSORS SAY
* Low research funding means fewer professors.
* Fewer professors means fewer, lower-quality, medical graduates.
* Fewer research opportunities means the next generation of professors will leave New Zealand.
