Whanganui GPs being asked to magically create more appointment slots

General practitioners cannot simply conjure up extra time to see patients rejected by the hospital system.

However, there is a way to alleviate the capacity problems in Whanganui: support GPs to do more and better work.

The New Zealand Herald reported this week that Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora has written to Whanganui GPs asking them to consider “all options of care” before referring those who need it to specialist orthopaedic care.

General Practitioners Aotearoa (GPA) interim chair Dr Buzz Burrell says that’s willfully ignoring the issue.

“Te Whatu Ora is implying that if the hospital had more staff, there would not be a problem,” he says.

“The opposite is the case. If the community had an adequately staffed, resourced and funded general practice workforce, there would not be a problem in Whanganui’s base hospital.”

Studies have definitively shown that increasing care in primary health reduces the number of hospital admissions.

When GPs are available to help people manage their conditions, they are less likely to end up needing specialist referrals.

The current situation is that people often need to wait days or weeks to get a GP appointment, and when they do, they are unlikely to see the same GP who knows their medical history.

“I am always amused when the local hospital is getting overloaded and the management sends out a call asking GPs only to send in essential and appropriate patients,” Burrell says.

“The insinuation is that at other times GPs are continuously sending in inappropriate and completely non-essential work.”

Since its formation in 2023, GPA has repeatedly predicted out loud that as general practice disintegrates, the secondary sector will disintegrate with it.

“We can see that happening live, right now, in Whanganui and elsewhere,” Burrell says.

“Te Whatu Ora is putting the cart before the horse. Loading up GPs with more work is just going to make the problem at the secondary sector worse,” he says.

“Fortunately we actually have a solution: supporting GPs to stay in the profession and work in better conditions; recruiting more GPs; and allowing them the time and resources to develop relationships with their patients and manage their health.

“This will reduce hospital admissions and save the health system millions.”