Simeon Brown: Health Minister on the new rural training programme in Taupō, senior doctors strike going ahead

Despite reports of critical levels of vacancies for senior doctor positions, Taupō hospital now has accreditation to train rural doctors. 

It will be the first North Island hospital to receive accreditation to deliver the training.  

Meanwhile senior doctors are still planning to strike on Thursday, despite a new offer from Health New Zealand. 

Health Minister Simeon Brown talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news for Topel. It's the first North Island hospital
being given accreditation to train rural doctors and the Health
Minister Simon Brown is with us. Now, Hey, Simon, I
we are having bad luck with the phones, aren't we Anyway,
Simy and Brabe. We'll try and get him up or
everybody's just turned into Burmer's today. We'll try and get

(00:20):
Simmy and Brown up and he'll be with us shortly.
Keep heller do see Alan, I think we may have
Simmy and Brown with us right now. So many are there?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, I'm here, Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's okay. It's happened a lot today.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm just driving back from road.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Will are you doing Awayne Brown? Or are you your
hands free?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
No? I'm I'm being driven.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh, I see much better even now listen, why have
you picked Topel?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Look, this is a process that the hospital has gone
through to get accredited. That's quite a rigorous process to
be accredited for this training pathway. And what it means
for that hospital now is that they are able to
attract specialists who were special generals who work in rural
medicine to that hospital as part of the Australian College

(01:06):
of rural and remote medicine and that opens up a
whole another pool of potential doctors who can go and
work in that hospital. And so this is the first
hospital in the North Island which has achieved that accreditation.
My hope is that Health News animal continue and expectations
they'll continue for further hospitals in our rural settings to
be able to get this accreditation so that we can

(01:28):
get the workforce we need into those rural hospitals, which
is really important.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
How have they I mean, how do you do this
at toepl if Topal doesn't even have it has about
a third of the senior doctor's positions filled at the moment.
How can they possibly train these doctors coming in or
is it not the senior doctors doing the training.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, it's part of the Australian College of Rural Remote Medicine.
It's about making sure they've they've got the ability to
be accredited, means they're able to then train and yes,
of course there is challenges there at the hospital at
the moment, but this opens up a new workforce to
them that they are able to bring it and bring
into access to come to New Zealand. Whether that's trainees

(02:04):
or whether that's fellows, and that means they're able to
then stabilize that workforce and actually attract it's it's not.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Just about bringing the trainees, and it also attracts the
people who will do the training.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's right. So it opens that ability up for that
hospital to be used as that that site in the
North Island. This model is used in the South Island
at Gray Hospital and Graymouse very effectively. It's meant they've
been able to attract and retain these doctors into that
area and actually see a reduction of locoms, which ultimately
means a more stable workforce, a more continuous care for

(02:41):
that community. And to be able to retain those doctors
really important to provide that level of service. So this
is a really important step forward for this hospital and
it's really important we use these types of models to
be able to attract and retain these doctors into these
communities which are hard to staff.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So I mean, is the strike still on for Thursday?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well, unfortunately it is. I've been very clear in my
views on this. Our senior doctors play a really important
and critical role in our hospitals, but this is going
to have a significant impact on the care of thousands
of patients who have been waiting too long for care.
Have operations, neo operations, character operations are going to be

(03:20):
a delayed, about four and a half thousand of them.
Health New Zealand did put a new offer on the
table on Thursday which addressed a number of the key
concerns that the union raised, including twenty five thousand dollars
bonding payments for senior doctors taking up positions in hard
to staff rural hospitals. The union has decided not to

(03:42):
put that offer back to its members to let them
decide whether to accept it rather than strike. I would
have thought that would have been the right approach in
order to allow the unions to make that the members
to make that decision. The unions decided not to, and
that means the care of thousands of patients is going
to be delayed unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I mean, you're a very good politician, so you're doing
a very good job of selling of certainly you know,
fighting this in public, but ultimately are you're not just
going to have to pony up the cash because otherwise
we're just not going to have enough doctors.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, we have more doctors working in New Zealand and
Health New Zealand now than when we came to government,
more nurses and now we came to government and yes,
and we've put a new offer on table on Thursday
last week and the union had the weekend.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
So the other way for you to solve this other
than to just pony up cash and pay these people more.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, and it was an improved offer. It was an
improved offer and it addressed the number of the key
concerns such as as they're bonding for senior doctors in
hard to staff hospitals as twenty five thousand payment to
bond those doctors there for two years, and included removing
the bottom three rungs of the pay for senior doctors.
They don't get a pay cut when they become a

(04:52):
senior doctor from a junior doctor. It addressed a number
of their key concerns and the right thing for the
union to do it have been to put the offer
back to its members to let them decide whether to
accept it or not, rather than for them to unilaterally
decide to continue with strike action, which is going to
see thousands of patients who have been waiting too long,

(05:13):
have their key cans let's be waiting for hip operations,
knee operations, charact operations, or just their first special assessments.
They are now going to have that further delayed, which
I find frankly unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Listen, Samon, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate
Simon Brown, the Minister of Health.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive listen live to
news Talks.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
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