Rural General Practice welcomes new health minister

“We congratulate the Labour-led Government on its election 2017 victory and look forward to working with new health minister David Clark to resolve the long-running health challenges facing rural communities,” says New Zealand Rural General Practice Network chief executive Dalton Kelly.

“We applaud the new Government’s commitment to injecting $1 billion a year into a regional development fund and the people who live and work in rural and regional New Zealand need a comprehensive health workforce to look after their health needs. Regional and rural New Zealand’s population is approximately 600,000 and many of them are employed in areas such as farming, agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, the seafood industry and tourism.

“It is encouraging to see that both Labour and New Zealand First have common ground in terms of primary care health policy, such as the recruitment and training of more GPs and health professionals, a review of the number and funding of DHBs and PHOs and a need to review and improve mental health services.

“We are keen to see that any review or initiatives in health services has a rural lens run over it to ensure that rural communities and health professionals benefit from the outcomes,” says Mr Kelly.