NZMSA statement on graduating doctors without jobs

The New Zealand Medical Students Association is deeply disappointed by the failure to employ all the doctors graduating from New Zealand Medical Schools in 2024.

The New Zealand health system is in the midst of a workforce crisis. Everyday we hear fresh stories of the urgent need for more doctors across the country, and of the dire consequences of these shortages for patients and staff alike.

Medical Students have often been help up as a long term solution to this problem. Domestically produced doctors have trained in our system, understand our communities, and are dedicated to the health and wellbeing of their friends and whānau here in Aotearoa.

Despite this when we are finally ready to being our careers as doctors we are being shut out of employment in a system that insists in needs us.

NZMSA has been campaigning for change in this area for years. In preparation for job matching process this year we contacted Te Whatu Ora [Health NZ] and the Minister of Health well in advance to inform them of the need for change to ensure that all the doctors produced in Aotearoa could stay in Aotearoa.

In spite of our early warnings and our willingness to be a part of the process, it is clear no meaningful change have been made.

Despite having completed a minimum of 6 years of intensive study, having dedicated long hours, nights and weekends to learning, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and estimated 25 soon to be doctors have been informed they do not have a job offer. They have been condemned to wait in limbo in the hopes that someone else turns down a job offer or quits, in order to be employed.

The situation is deeply distressing and totally unnecessary. We need these young doctors and instead our system treats them so dismissively.

NZMSA calls on the government to make this right immediately. To invest in creating positions for ALL New Zealand Graduates who are unmatched and to begin immediately making changes to the process of matching to ensure this does not continue to happen.