Andrew Dickens: Why the plan for a new Waikato medical school might not work

It's beggars belief these days when we report that it's hard to make money in a GP practice and that we don't have enough doctors.

Primary medical care is the most important care, forget your fancy specialists and rock star surgeons.

If your GP can spot and fix a problem as it begins then you can save your life and save the nation a ton on costs down the line so the health of our primary health sector should be of primary importance.

But it hasn't been.

We've added a million people through immigration over the past 10 years and we've also been creating new New Zealanders ourselves while our numbers of doctors per head of population has plummeted.

There's two ways to get new doctors.

One way to find them is to import them but that's necessarily difficult because not every Tom Dick and Harry who say they're doctors are in fact doctors.

The other way is to train them ourselves and in that area we've been woefully short on numbers. I don't know why, you'd think our doctor training would increase in line with population but it hasn't.

And what about the University of Waikato’s new medical school?

This was an election policy. It was pushed by the university and supported by the government.

Well we’re a year into a new administration and where is it? 

The medical unions are saying this is taking too long.

The Prime Minister says work is continuing on the business case and it will go to cabinet in the future.

But unofficially it is understood that the project has been dogged with problems and is increasingly seen as an unnecessary, costly, and bad idea. 

I’m sorry, a bad idea? From well paid consultants? From Steven Joyce?

Steven Joyce has many good ideas but this is proof that like everyone not all of them are gold. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It beggars belief these days when we report that it's
hard to make money if you're a doctor, it's hard
to make money if you have got a GP practice.
It beggars belief that we don't have enough doctors in
this country. Primary medical care is the most important care
we can have. Forget your fancy specialists, forget your rock
star surgeons. If a GP can spot and fix a

(00:22):
problem as it begins, then you can save your life
and you can save the nation a ton on costs
down the line. So the health of our primary health
sector should be of primary importance, but it hasn't been.
We've added a million people through immigration over the past
ten years, and we've also been creating new New Zealanders ourselves,
while our numbers of doctors per head of population is plummeted.

(00:45):
There's two ways to get new doctors right. One way
is to find them and import them from overseas, but
that is necessarily difficult because not every Tom Dick and
Harry who say their doctors are in fact doctors. We've
seen stories about that. The other way is to train
them ourselves, and in that area, I believe we've been
waefully short on the numbers. I do not know why

(01:05):
you'd think our doctor trading would increase in line of population,
but it hasn't for decades. And what about this University
of Waikato new medical school which was an election policy.
Remember it was built on top of a report completed
by Steven Joyce's consultancy firm, which is basically Stephen in
some researches, a consultancy report that was not cheap. It

(01:27):
was pushed by the University of Waikato. It got supported
by the people who became the government. We're supposed to
have a new medical school in the Wykato in Hamilton.
Well we are a year into the new administration and
where are we at. We've got nothing. The medical unions
are already coming out saying this is taking too long.

(01:47):
The Prime Minister's only commented on it is that work
is continuing on the business case and it will go
to cabinet in the future. So where the hell does
that mean? That is? But unofficially it is understood the
project has been dogged with problems and is increasingly seen
as unnecessary, costly, and worst of all, a bad idea.

(02:08):
I'm sorry, A bad idea from Stephen Joyce. From a
well paid consultant who knew Stephen Joyce has many good ideas,
but maybe this one isn't so. But still, if we're
wanting to train new doctors and we want to train
them in a school, we were going to build a
new one, but we're not building a new one, So
what about raising the money the numbers? Elsewhere? Things are

(02:29):
just not happening, And it's not nice when things just
don't happen, because frankly, I'd like to go to a doctor,
and when I do go to a doctor, I don't
want to be told that you've only got fifteen minutes,
but in fact, let's make that ten because I'm running late.
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(02:52):
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