Dr Fiona Bolden – May 2026

Kia ora tātou

It was only three weeks ago I wrote about our inspirational conference which shone a light on rural health in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a particular focus on Mātauranga Māori. With almost 1000 attendees from around the globe, this conference was unlike any other, particularly in terms of the conversations, connections and legacy that have come from it.

Since then, we have continued to focus on that legacy with the completion of the Aotearoa New Zealand Declaration following further input and feedback from many of you through the conference.

There are two parts to the Declaration. The first is specific to New Zealand and lists 23 actions which we believe would contribute to better healthcare for rural New Zealanders through a variety of mechanisms. Many of these actions focus on workforce and funding, which completely underpin the sustainability of any health service.

The second part of the legacy is the international component, written by Dr Pratyush Kumar, Chair of the Working Party on Rural Practice. Prior to the conference he launched GRACE (Global Rural Health Action, Collaboration and Excellence), which is a key initiative supporting this work, and Rural WONCA will be taking this forward. It was encouraging to see such strong alignment between the challenges faced by rural communities internationally and those we see here in Aotearoa.

We used the first part of the Declaration to guide our calls to action at RuralFest, which was held last week. This was the 10th year of this annual event, primarily led by our Rural Communities Chapter, where we go to the Beehive to find out what the various parties intend to do for rural health. Obviously this felt particularly crucial with the Budget coming out this week and the election coming up later in the year.

We condensed the 23 actions from the Declaration down into 12 key priorities and then throughout the day had a widespread presentation of each of these points by our members who attended. They were only given two minutes to speak to the topic, so presentations needed to be concise, speedy and very targeted in their calls to action – the rural health advocacy version of speed dating!

In the morning coalition parties were invited to attend and Minister Simeon Brown joined us, which was appreciated, especially as he had missed Rural WONCA 2026. In the afternoon, the opposition parties came, in this case primarily party members Ayesha Verrall for Labour and Scott Willis for the Greens.

Our targeted approach to presenting the issues and the solutions gave a very unified call to action which we certainly hope will see these politicians respond to appropriately. Some of the actions are relatively straightforward and would require changes such as funding boosts, reporting adjustments, or improvements to contracting processes. Others are more strategic and will require a long-term focus and should be cross party initiatives.

What continues to stand out to me is the strength of our collective rural voice. The conference, the Declaration and RuralFest have all reinforced that rural communities know what is needed, and that solutions already exist when people are willing to listen and work together.

We will continue to report back to you on the progress made around these actions. Rural communities are depending on meaningful change, and we will continue advocating strongly to help make that happen.

Ngā mihi

Fiona