New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association (NZRDA) and the APEX Union are today releasing a report proposing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora create a primary care arm and immediately begin employing specialist General Practitioners (GPs) to work alongside Resident Doctors training to become GPs within a Multi-Disciplinary Team in areas underserved by primary care.
The report – Community Health New Zealand – A Sustainable Option for Primary Care – looks at structural problems in primary care including growing corporate ownership, record government funding, and too few GPs and other primary care professionals.
“Despite the Government $1.56 billion funding of primary care services reaching record levels, nearly $300 per person each year, access gets worse each year, with many people now unable to enrol with or see a GP,” said Dr Deborah Powell, National Secretary of NZRDA and APEX.
“Part of the problem is less money is now spent employing GPs to provide care and more spent funding the corporate and bureaucratic organisations such as PHOs and for-profit health companies in the middle,” said Dr Powell.
“At least 320,338 New Zealanders are not enrolled in a GP practice and hundreds of thousands more are now accessing primary care through our emergency departments. Our report proposes Health New Zealand create a primary care arm focusing on underserved and disadvantaged populations. Health NZ could then employ GPs and allow patients to enrol with HNZ as their primary care provider. Primary care practices would operate across seven days in locations like rural Northland, Gisborne and South Auckland, improving access to primary care and taking pressure off our Emergency Departments,” said Dr Powell.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Dr. Deborah Powell
APEX National Secretary
Phone: 021 614 040
Email: secretary@apex.org.nz
Omar Hamed
APEX Advocate
Phone: 021 523 897
Email: omar@apex.org.nz
Read the report
