National leader Christopher Luxon says opening immigration to overseas-trained doctors is crucial to fixing the current GP crisis.
He told Breakfast that while he supports Labour's plans to bring more graduates into GP training, their focus is in the wrong place.
"The Government last month announced a GP strategy, and there are some things in that which we'd be keen to support, certainly around the first-year medical students coming out into the hospital system or a GP system.
"We've got amazing staff; they're working hard and getting burnt out; a lot of it, in my view, is that we're building a massive health bureaucracy here in Wellington, and we need that money, and those resources pushed to the frontline," he said.
Luxon said that the first step towards fixing the issue in the short-term is to make it easier for doctors from overseas to settle in New Zealand and make it an attractive place to live.
"We need to open up our immigration settings because we've had a number of tragic cases of GPs who are new New Zealanders that have wanted to stay here but haven't been able to do that due to visa constraints.
"New Zealand has to be a great place for talent from India, Wales, Scotland, wherever they're coming from to want to come and live here," Luxon said.
In the long-term, Luxon wants less spending on the health system's restructuring and more investment in new doctors.
"We want that money to move from the back room of the office out to the frontline services, so that you can actually recruit the workforce and have good health outcomes for New Zealanders."
He said that he and his party are committed to increasing the number of doctors entering the workforce should they be in government.
GPs in crisis
GPs across the country are worried that patient safety is being compromised by long wait times due to understaffing.
On Monday, a collective of GPs called GenPro penned an open letter to the Government calling for better funding and acknowledgement of the issue.
They say 45% of patients have to wait a week or longer to see a doctor.
A campaign was launched yesterday calling on the Government to provide more support. (Source: Breakfast)
GenPro's Dr Tim Malloy told Breakfast on Monday that doctors are feeling overrun, stressed and compromised - which is becoming dangerous.
"We are overrun with demand on our time and expertise; the consequence is that we are a very stressed, very compromised workforce," he said.
"At the end of the day, we're feeling unsafe. Patient harm is possible because delays in care are a critical factor to outcomes."
He too wants to see more med school graduates go into GP training and overseas doctors brought in.
Little says fix will take time
Health Minister Andrew Little said he and the Government are doing everything possible to support GPs during the current crisis.
When speaking to Breakfast this yesterday, he said the issue wouldn't be fixed overnight.
Andrew Little said the Government is doing everything possible to address the issue, but it won't be fixed overnight. (Source: Breakfast)
"We do have a GP shortage; there's no question about that, so a number of measures are being enacted to address that, some of them short-term, the immigration issues are short-term.
"We're making it easier to get doctors who are qualified from overseas to come here and to practice here - then there's the long-term stuff which is creating more of our own," Little said.
Little said he wants to see far more medical school graduates go into GP training, from 200 to 300 a year. He also wants to lift trainee doctors' pay and provide more support for practices that supply training.
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