Funding to train more medical students and additional support for trainee nurses may be on the way as New Zealand grapples with workforce shortages in its health system.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall told Q+A New Zealand couldn't keep relying on overseas healthcare workers to plug its staffing gaps.
"I think looking after students is a way that we can have a better impact on growing our domestic workforce."
The health minister discussed the Government’s plan to protect the health system over winter. (Source: 1News)
She acknowledged the costs of studying can be a "major barrier" for students completing their medical training "because it costs money to keep gas in your car so that you can go attend a woman giving birth as a midwifery student".
While Verrall supported the idea of bonding periods in principle - such as the scheme National is proposing - she said it made more sense to focus on preventing students from dropping out.
She said that could mean paying nursing students while they train and increasing grants and scholarships.
"Given we know there are dropouts of people who want to be midwives, want to be nurses, in the late stage of training, that seems to me a more logical place to invest."
Last year, 27,000 people signed a petition calling for student nurses to be paid while they train. Nursing students told 1News financial pressures were why many were dropping out of their course.
One other issue is the "lack of graduates", Verrall said.
OECD data from 2020 shows there are 10.4 medical graduates per 100,000 people in New Zealand, compared to the UK's 13.1 and Australia's 14.9.
200 more medical graduates a year needed
Meanwhile, the Resident Doctors' Association estimates about 200 more medical graduates a year were needed in New Zealand.
The maximum number of places available between the country's two medical medical schools is capped at 539 because a large chunk of Government funding - under its education budget - is needed to support that training.
Both the Otago Medical School and Auckland's School of Medicine had made offers to train more students. The Government had not taken up the offer.
In February, Verrall told 1News the decision not to raise student intake numbers was made before she took over as Health Minister. She told Q+A this week she was open to the idea of increasing it.
But as for how quickly that could be done, Verrall said it would depend on getting new funding for it.
National's health spokesperson Shane Reti is convinced a third medical school could help the situation.
In 2016, the now-defunct Waikato DHB and the University of Waikato put in a joint bid to run that third school. It proposed to accept 120 students in its first year, eventually building up to an intake of 160 a year. It also wanted to focus on training doctors to work with Māori, Pasifika, and provincial communities.
The Labour-led coalition government scrapped the idea in 2018.
Verrall said her experience training at the Wellington branch of the Otago Medical School showed her how expensive it was to run a school.
"So I do wonder about whether a new medical school fixes the problem we have, which is the lack of graduates."
Workforce shortages
Te Whatu Ora has a workforce shortage of about 600 senior doctors and 4000 nurses.
Some New Zealand nurses may be heading across the ditch - about 5000 have registered to practice in Australia since August, according to Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency figures provided to Q+A.
Not every nurse who registers will go to Australia. But, Verrall said the Government didn't know how many had made the move because people aren't asked what qualifications they have when they leave New Zealand.
It'll take time to improve the computer systems required for more detailed data, she added.
Q+A is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
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