Southern stalwart Branko Sijnja humbled by Peter Snow Memorial Award

“I’ve done hospital medicine, but general practice is my calling”

Specialist GP Branko Sijnja, who has worked as a rural GP for more than 40 years, has won this year’s Peter Snow Memorial Award which has been announced well ahead of the National Rural Health Conference.

“I’m humbled by it all but there have been a lot of other people who have helped make it work,” Dr Sijnja says.

New Zealand Rural General Practice Network chair Fiona Bolden says the organisation is delighted to give Dr Sijnja the award. “He’s been a real stalwart of rural practice, especially training, for many years.” Dr Bolden says he’s always supported the network.

Dr Sijnja says he couldn’t have done it without his family: “I’ve been very well supported by my wife and son, who’ve put up with all the hours, the interruptions and answered the phone when it rang.” Over his career, he’s become well-known for delivering hundreds of babies in Balclutha.

He says it’s an honour to receive an award with Peter Snow’s name on it. He met Dr Snow, who had a general practice in Tapanui in West Otago, several times, and describes him as a “very good and versatile general practitioner”.

According to a media release from the network, Dr Sijnja began his health career as a medical officer in 1974. After graduating from medical school, he did his first year at Palmerston North Hospital where he “got a bit bullied” then moved to Dannevirke where his “faith was restored in medicine”.

Dr Sijnja then worked in Scotland at the orthopaedic unit of Bridge of Earn Hospital, which no longer exists, and in obstetrics and gynaecology at Perth Royal Infirmary.

In 1980, he began working in general practice.

Dr Sijnja was involved in setting up Clutha Health First, which opened in 1998, providing hospital, community and general practice services to the Clutha district. It was one of first in the country to offer integrated services,“Ōamaru and Gore weren’t far behind,” he says.

The creation of Clutha Health First was sparked by a threat to close local hospitals in 1992. Dr Sijnja says 250 people were expected to attend a protest march in Dunedin, “but the population of Balclutha - 4500 people - turned up.”

Dr Sijnja says they “got a rollover to continue things as they were”. They received funding for a laparoscope and sent doctors to Australia for training, and then people came from Dunedin, Christchurch and the West Coast to get their gall bladders out because the public system “was choked”.

It all came to an end when they realised the hospital, with its long corridors and slate roof would be too hard to maintain. Dr Sijnja says they “decided to choose something viable” by bringing general practice together, having a small number of beds and clinics and locating it in the middle of town.

He says the facility has GPs, a hospital, an inpatient service, maternity services, its own laboratory, provided by Southern Community Laboratories, x-rays, district nurses and physiotherapists.

Dr Sijnja is still involved in the governance of Clutha Health First and works three days a week, which he plans to continue: “I’ve done hospital medicine, but general practice is my calling.”

The 75-year-old says as long as his “brain’s going” he will keep doing it, because he enjoys it.

An offshoot of Dr Sijnja’s career has been the training of aspiring rural GPs. He became the director of the Rural Medical Immersion Programme at the University of Otago in 2010. Through that programme, he mentors fifth-year medical students as they work and study in rural New Zealand.

“It’s a lot of fun, it keeps me on the ball, and keeps me young,” says Dr Sijnja.

Dr Bolden says Dr Sijnja is a natural teacher, who goes above and beyond to ensure his students succeed. “He’s a really positive person who has always engaged well with students and has had a lot of good feedback on his teaching.”

Dr Bolden says at conferences Dr Sijnja is always surrounded by young rural students, telling them stories and joking with them, which is a “wonderful thing”.

Dr Sijnja works part time at the university and will be retiring from his role as director at the end of this month.

Dr Sijnja says New Zealand is “way down” on rural GP numbers and the whole country is in the same boat. “We’re all short and desperately need doctors – every doctor who comes is welcome,” he says.

Dr Sijnja will be given the NZRGPN award, certificate and medal at the National Rural Health Conference in September.

The conference is usually held in April but was postponed this year due to COVID-19.

The network will officially become Hauora Taiwhenua in Parliament on Tuesday 28 June.

In 2021, Dr Sijnja was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. It recognises Fellows of the College who have made sustained contributions to general practice, medicine, or the health and wellbeing of the community.

The media release says the Peter Snow Memorial Award was set up to honour the life and work of Dr Peter Snow who passed away in March 2006. Dr Snow was a rural general practitioner based in Tapanui.

As well as caring for his patients, Peter was past president of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and was a member of the Otago Hospital Board and District Health Board.

He was enthusiastic and active in seeking knowledge to improve the health and safety of rural communities. His work contributed to the identification of the chronic fatigue syndrome and he was influential in raising safety awareness on issues related to farming accidents.

Inaugural winner Dr Ron Janes (2007)
Nurse Jean Ross and Dr Pat Farry (2008 – jointly awarded)
Dr Garry Nixon (2009)
Dr Tim Malloy (2010)
Dr Martin London (2011)
Nurse Kirsty Murrell-McMillan (2012)
Dr Graeme Fenton and NZIRH CE Robin Steed (2013)
Kim Gosman and Dr Janne Bills (2014)
Dr Katharina Blattner (2015)
Dr Ivan and Leonie (RNS) Howie (2016)
Drs Chris Henry and Andrea Judd (2017)
Dr Keith Buswell (2018)
Dr John Burton (2019)
Mātanga Tapuhi (Nurse Practitioner) Tania Kemp (2020)
Dr Grahame Jelley (2021)