Timeframe for rural health training schools uncertain

University of Otago Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Health Sciences Prof Peter Crampton explains the merits of a national school of rural health at the General Practice Conference in Dunedin at the end of last month. Photo / Otago Daily Times

If the proposed new rural health training school goes ahead, training hubs for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health practitioners could be introduced into 10 rural communities throughout the country.

However, Otago University's Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Health Sciences and Otago Medical School dean Professor Peter Crampton said while the proposal was being considered by the relevant Government parties, he was unsure how long it would be before a decision about governmental support and funding was announced.

''I don't know when we will hear about the next step and the upcoming election complicates it,'' Prof Crampton said.

The national school of rural health proposal had been developed by Otago and Auckland universities, as well as the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners last year.

Many rural medical providers are finding it increasingly difficult to attract medical professionals, including general practitioners, midwives and pharmacists, to rural areas because of the isolation, lack of services, connectivity and job opportunities for partners.

He said if the school went ahead, students' training and learning experiences in rural communities were likely to be positive and graduates were more likely to prefer to remain to work in the rural sector.

''We are talking about establishing 10 rural training hubs within 10 rural communities, but we are not prepared to say where the hubs will be until we have got security of funding for this.''

The collaborators are working with Treasury staff and tertiary education officials on the costings, and he was not prepared to say how much the project was expected to cost at this stage.

Each hub would be based on a rural hospital, and each would have several spokes, with students of different health disciplines (for example, pharmacists, midwives, general practitioners, etc) working and training within the structure.

Each hub would look slightly different, depending on the strengths within the communities.

''We would be employing local health practitioners to run the hubs.''

He said a hub system would lose economies of scale, as money would be invested in the community-based training infrastructure but that additional health infrastructure would attract and encourage retention of health staff.

The existing rural medical training programmes, such as Otago University's Rural Medical Immersion Programme, would continue.

He said international and national research evidence has indicated graduates with positive learning experiences were more likely to remain rural areas.

''In addition, those young people were more likely to meet their significant other in that sort of environment.''

If the programme goes ahead he hope to see two hubs established next year.

NZ Rural General Practice Network chief executive Dalton Kelly said, in a press release, that a nationally focused, multidisciplinary approach to training rural health professionals was a sensible way to address the longer term health needs of rural communities.

The network supported a call by Prof Max Abbott, Dean of the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at Auckland University of Technology, to train doctors, nurses and allied health professionals specifically for rural communities, many of which struggled to recruit and retain health professionals.

- Otago Daily Times