By DANIEL JACKSON
KAITAIA - When three of Kaitaia's eight GPs walk away from their practice next year, it is unlikely anyone will replace them, prompting fears the remaining doctors will not cope.
The town's largest practice, the Kaitaia Medical Centre, is likely to close in March as three of its four doctors call it quits without being able to find replacements.
The town's other four doctors would then face having to cope with a caseload of up to 25,000 people.
Dr Tim Malloy, chairman of the New Zealand Rural GP Network, said Kaitaia's GPs were facing meltdown.
He said Kaitaia was the worst example of a national failure to attract GPs to work in rural areas.
"We're not bringing it to the public's attention to be melodramatic, the burden on the town's remaining doctors will be so significant they will not be able to sustain their practices."
"The quality of care must fall."
Dr Tom Young, who has tended patients in Kaitaia for 35 years, said he had been trying to find a replacement so he could retire but found it impossible.
"We don't seem to be able to get anyone else. It's not just Kaitaia's problem, it's a problem for all the rural areas."
He said one of the doctors was leaving to have her fourth child and the other was leaving to join his wife who had left town for tertiary study.
Dr Young said rural GPs could enjoy a good lifestyle but many doctors were not attracted to it because of the probability of being on call 24 hours a day, the long hours and difficulty in taking time off.
Kaitaia Hospital co-ordinator Donna Mayes said the hospital also faced difficulties attracting doctors. "And it's not for want of trying."
The halving of the number of GPs in the town would put a huge load on the remaining GPs and the hospital.
"The sort of things that will suffer will be preventative medicine, because they simply won't have the time.
"We will become the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff."
People who needed emergency treatment would take precedence and non-urgent cases would have to wait.
"If people do get sick there will always be someone there to see them but things that would get done, if we had the luxury of more doctors, simply won't get done."
She said the hospital, Northland Health and the ministry were working to solve the problem but there were no immediate solutions.
Mrs Mayes said one answer might be to operate a service, in conjunction with the GPs, which brought doctors to the town for a short time, possibly from medical school, to allow existing GPs a break.
Dr Malloy said New Zealand was competing with Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States.
"It is an international problem. Every country in the Western World is trying to come to grips with a shortage of rural GPs."
New Zealand lagged behind other countries as it did not offer a comprehensive support network. Increasing the remuneration for rural GPs would not solve the problem.
"We need an infrastructure to give them relief, holiday breaks and education opportunities because that's what all the other countries are doing."
The New Zealand Council of Medical Colleges was preparing a report on the situation, due out by the middle of next year.
"We will await it with interest but sadly it will be too late for Kaitaia."
'Meltdown' looms for GPs in Northland
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