A new board is being set up to ease disputes over clinical placements for an increasing intake of medical students.
A new medical school will open in Waikato in 2028, boosting trainee numbers by 120 students yearly, who will need supervision training in hospitals and clinics.
Auckland and Otago already train 630 students per year group, and opposed the third medical school, wanting to expand their classes instead.
Now the Government is going ahead with the third school – placements have caused a new clash.
Letters obtained by 1News show the University of Otago wrote to the Health Minister late last October, concerned Waikato planned to place students in Christchurch and Nelson, regions Otago had invested heavily in, including the new Wai Ora building in Christchurch for students and staff, costing about $300 million.
In another letter the next day, this time to the Ministry of Health, the university said the Government had made “no consideration” for this investment.
This second letter also said the Government’s model would “require the University of Auckland and the University of Otago to retrench from some existing placements without having been consulted in the process”.
It also said: "We look forward to the opportunity to work with everyone on this, rather than the current arrangement which appears to be that the University of Otago and the University of Auckland are seen as another problem to overcome."
Asked about the letters, Otago Vice-Chancellor Grant Robertson said: “I think there was a lot of teething issues.”
GPs said they were already struggling to find time and room space to supervise juniors.
The Royal College of GPs’ president Dr Luke Bradford said: “There currently are constraints without doubt. We already know that Otago and Auckland are having to train students remotely sometimes, so without putting them into general practice.”
The Ministry of Health has also warned in an internal risk register, that if services switch placements to Waikato, “this may not result in a net increase in clinical placement capacity”.
“Instead, it could lead to a redistribution of existing placements, resulting in the need for existing medical schools to secure additional capacity to maintain their training pipelines.”
The Health Minister and ministry have written back to Otago to set up a new board.
Health Minister Simeon Brown said it was a "new medical training board which is looking at clinical placements across New Zealand, making sure that we have clinical placements in our hospitals and in primary care”.
He said this would stop Waikato taking other schools' training spots.
“They may have had disagreements in the past, but it's bringing them together to work on what is in the national interest, which is training more doctors in New Zealand and keeping those doctors here in New Zealand.”
And recent talks have made Otago more optimistic.
Robertson told 1News: “We've had good discussions with the Minister of Health and I know he's been here and he's met with our staff, and I think he's got a good understanding of where we're at.”
The Resident Doctors’ Association national secretary Dr Deborah Powell said rural health hubs may also create more training spots.
“I think it's a little myopic to be honest to look at just hospital practice,” Powell said.
Waikato University declined to comment further, saying only that it was working with Health New Zealand to find placements.
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