An Auckland GP has said that doing his job has become harder and harder as understaffing in primary care seems to have created a health crisis.
Dr Torrance Merkle from Hobsonville Family Doctors told his story to Breakfast this morning, highlighting the struggles that his clinic and many others are currently facing.
He said that while his clinic is in an attractive part of the city, he has still seen four GPs move overseas or out of the city, meaning that services have been cut down and doctors' hours have become longer.
“Where we would previously be able to see people within occasionally the same day but usually within 24 hours or 48 hours - for our clinic, it’s now between four to five days,” he said.
“It’s a really fine balance between pushing yourself.
“We find ourselves doing over one to three hours of unpaid admin paperwork time a day - we do it because it's important and we know the patient we’re looking after, we want to deliver the best care we can, but it’s unsustainable."
Delays in service mean that Merkle's clinic can’t attend to patients when they need treatment, with some patients already better when they visit - but some worse, making their job hard.
“It becomes more complex to treat or figure out,” he said.
Rural doctors have been facing the brunt of the issues on the frontline, and Merkle says working in these areas needs to be made a more appealing prospect for trainee doctors.
He said that the connection that the patient forms with the doctor, especially in rural areas, is a big reason as to why his job is so great and why easily accessible GPs are so necessary.
"Patients that have been seeing their doctor regularly, they know them intimately - they know the kids, the grandparents, all the whānau - there's a magic in that," he said.
Merkle said he became a doctor to help people, but understaffing issues have impeded his ability to do this - he now finds it hard to recommend the career to people who are interested.
“Five years ago, probably still a yep, at the moment, unless there are significant improvements - it’s just unsustainable.
“Unless something big happens to bring more GPs to clinic rooms, we’re going to be in even more of a mess,” he said.
He talked about a hiring experience where his clinic put a job ad on Seek for a new nurse, and they only received one applicant after a month. Luckily his clinic found a nurse, but he knows that for other practices, it hasn't been so easy.
Merkle wants to see the understaffing issues addressed as soon as possible because, in his belief, there won’t be enough new doctors to replace the ones retiring.
“I’m sure that in the next five to ten years, probably up to half of our general practitioners are going to be retiring.
“At our clinic, though, we’re gonna try and not let him escape, but he is going to want to retire,” he said.
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