Relief is in sight for medical practices struggling to bring in doctors from overseas, in the hope of filling severe staff shortages.
An immigration rule requiring new foreign healthcare workers to start their jobs by 31 March is causing frustrations for the sector.
Lower Hutt practice, Manuka Health Centre, spent six months trying to recruit a doctor locally to no avail.
Eventually, the practice extended the search to overseas and in January offered a GP role to Dr Tom Spiegler from London.
But his visa was declined because he couldn’t get a spot in MIQ till May, missing the March 31 deadline to start work.
“It's really frustrating because I just want to move on with this. So for the past couple of weeks we've been stuck in limbo,” Spiegler said from his London home.
Dr Jane Knight from Manuka Health Centre she was “staggered” by the rejection.
“I mean with a climate of a global pandemic, as GPs we are being asked to roll out the Covid vaccine and also there’s a backdrop of a chronic GP shortage. To decline a GP is just really surprising”.
About 40 percent of New Zealand’s GPs are trained overseas.
As of 4 March this year, Immigration New Zealand has received 4,743 requests for a border exception under the ‘critical health worker’ category. Of those requests 2,770 have been approved.
Rural practices had found it particularly difficult to get in GPs from overseas before the cut-off date.
Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi has heard frustrations from the sector and is now removing it to help ease the pressure.
"The March 31 deadline was brought in when we closed the borders. That was made so we could review it, so we've decided to lift that expiry date,” he said.
The change is a relief for the health care sector, but it alone won’t fix the chronic GP shortage.
The Hutt Valley is short 11 GPs, meaning about 15,000 in the area don’t have a doctor.
“They're set to get worse, actually the shortages. So we need to be working on it now,” said Dr Samantha Murton, president of the Royal College of GPs.
As for Spiegler, the signs are looking more positive that he’ll now be able to start work in New Zealand.
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