Guest Post: New Zealand’s Doctor Shortage Isn’t Real—It’s a Policy Failure

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Marley Joseph:

New Zealand’s public hospitals are facing a doctor shortage, yet Health New Zealand—the bureaucratic body overseeing our public health system—continues to artificially limit the number of hospital internship positions available to newly qualified doctors. Without these placements, graduates cannot gain full registration and are effectively locked out of the workforce. Meanwhile, instead of hiring more permanent staff, hospitals are forcing already overworked junior doctors to take on unsafe levels of extra shifts just to keep the system running. This isn’t a funding issue—it’s a case of government mismanagement and poor workforce planning that is burning out staff and driving talented doctors overseas.

David Farrar: The surge in doctors leaving

An interesting OIA response which details how many RMOs (junior hospital doctors) who left the NZ health system every year:

Dr Michael Bassett: Excessive gate-keeping spoils our health system

The Herald on 30 October led with a story about the Health Minister welcoming fast-track registration for overseas-trained medical graduates to fill critical gaps in our health workforce. Determined, as always, to cry stinky fish about anything the coalition government does, a reporter tracked down critical comments from the salaried medical specialists’ union who denounced the move. The reporter lacked the experience to realise why the doctors oppose the minister on issues like this. What the union wants is more government money spent on its members and their pet projects. It believes that important efforts to save money in the Health sector will almost certainly delay salary increases for them. Scarcity has always worked in favour of higher salaries, so the union wants a gate to stop British, Irish and Australian doctors from filling the gaps in our hospitals too rapidly.