‘Give Waikato GP training’ - med school supporters write in: Letters to the editor, August 22, 2024

Thursday, 22 August 2024

The University of Waikato has spent years making the case to set up New Zealand's fourth medical school.

A wholehearted yes

While reading the article Time is right for Waikato Medical School in the Waikato Times, Saturday, August 17, I saw you were asking readers to write to you in support of the proposal, and I gladly will.

In the past, I worked as a rural district nurse on the South Island for several decades. The district nursing service I worked for was based at the Medical Centre in Oxford, North Canterbury.

I have seen many rural GPs come, and go, quite a number from overseas. I have seen the difficulties retaining the GPs. And for those who did stay, the additional problems, they faced. (Problems that GPs in a big city, with their large number of doctors within one medical centre usually don't have to face) .

The ongoing support of community input is vital. And a massive step, from the community, was that the medical centre with one GP owning the practice was converted to a medical centre owned by a community charitable trust that employed GPs!

It was a real life-saver. And the services of Oxford Community Health Centre have continued to evolve.

I like to add that the medical school of Otago University and its branch in Christchurch were actively trying to help to attract and retain rural GPs. But I know the issue is not easy to solve, and the university has many things to focus on. Whatever they have done, reality shows it has not been enough.

So I am very much in support of Waikato medical school that works with a different model that will:

enrol graduate students, including from non-traditional areas,
focus on graduating GPs for provincial and rural areas,
undertake a real effort to attract students from Maori, Pasifika and rural back-grounds.

Training would be compressed into four years at a future Waikato medical school which will be "a fantastic legacy for New Zealand", National Party leader Christopher Luxon said. (First published July 6 2023.)

I wholeheartedly support this model and hope the Government will allow it to proceed.

Elly Pieper, Te Awamutu

Want to share your thoughts? Email editor@waikatotimes.co.nz with your full name and (not for publication) address and phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

Bring on med school

I am writing this email in total support of a medical school being established in Waikato.

Hamilton has a large base hospital, a university campus and a dire need of more doctors. It is an obvious and sensible choice to use these factors to create a medical training facility in Hamilton.

Readers who want a Waikato med school shared their thoughts in response to an editorial from Jonathan MacKenzie.

I was a nurse at Waikato Hospital and I am a current user of a local medical centre, so I speak from a local’s point of view.

Give Waikato GP training!!

Jane Jacobsen, Ōhaupō

Funding struggles

A relationship with a teaching hospital at Waikato would be an advantage for the scool, writes Sandra Brown.

I fully support the medical school developments at Waikato University. Otago and Auckland Universities are trying to undermine the third medical school for commercial reasons.

It is undoubtedly true that successive governments have underfunded medical training as they have in many other areas of government services, and if they come to the party with adequate funding, all three medical schools’ outputs will be necessary if we are ever to catch up with our shortage of home trained GPs.

Once again, politicians offer the pretext that government-funded organisations need to make efficiencies, but do not acknowledge that underfunding is often the real cause of their struggles. Long term underfunding of government agencies is akin to homeowners not insuring their houses or doing routine maintenance. When politicians come up with implausible excuses for inaction, they are insulting the electorate and can expect a backlash at the next election.

Hugh Webb, Hamilton

Four reasons

Please add my name to the support team.

1. GP training priority - train our people not take GPs from other countries

2. Relationship with teaching hospital at Waikato

3. New modern facility

4. First class university

I’d like to add if Auckland and Dunedin had prioritised GP training from 2017 when the idea was first announced we might not be in such bad shape.

Not sure if National will follow through, could be a watered down version due to lacklustre enthusiasm from partners.

Lots of opportunities for public groups to be financially involved with such a project eg Tainui, Gallagher, just look at the private support the Waikato hospital has received - Hockin just to name one.

Sandra Brown, Hamilton