Hauora Taiwhenua celebrates the long-awaited launch of Rural Training Hubs

Years of advocacy by Hauora Taiwhenua is rewarded with success in the announcement of the establishment of interprofessional rural training hubs across New Zealand. Our members see these as being a key pathway to encourage the growth of rural health professionals in rural areas and retention of existing health workers. This belief is based on strong international and New Zealand research showing that if you train rural people in rural settings, they are six times more likely to return to work in those rural areas.

Hauora Taiwhenua CEO Dr Grant Davidson said, “The launch of the first Rural Training Hub, announced today by Hon Matt Doocey Minister for Rural Health and Mark Patterson, Minister Rural Communities is the culmination of hard work by a lot of people. It is pleasing to see this Government further backing the health of rural communities by establishing these networks of learning. Their success will be through co-commitment from the local community, the local Council, Iwi, and tertiary training providers. Having Health NZ funding a Programme Lead to drive the networking and providing pastoral support to the diverse student cohort is vital.”

The first Interprofessional Rural Training Hub announced today will be based in South Taranaki and involve the rural hospital in Hāwera, general practices, iwi providers, and other private primary care providers in the region. We understand that this will be followed by the launch of a further three Rural Training Hubs by the end of the year; resulting in a Hub in each of the four Health NZ regions of New Zealand (Northern, Midland, Central and South Island).

Hauora Taiwhenua’s vision is that trainee doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health workers, kaiāwhina and others will be supported in their learning, be integrated into the communities they are training in, understand their roles as part of multidisciplinary health teams, and can do a lot of their training without having to leave home. Furthermore, that experienced rural health professionals will be involved in training the next generation and be encouraged to stay working in their rural jobs because of this and the impact this work will have.

This first hub in South Taranaki will involve students on existing programmes such as the fifth-year medical students from the University of Auckland on their yearlong Rural Medical Immersion Programme, nursing trainees from the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT), along with midwifery, allied health and other health trainees that can study remotely.

Dr Davidson added that, “the successful growth of this and other Rural Training Hubs will be Tertiary Education Organisations adapting their training programmes to be delivered remotely using well-proven tele-learning, reinforced by on-job training in real rural workplaces, supervised by experienced rural health workers. This is a mind-shift for many institutes running legacy classroom-based training programmes, but is the future to provide cost-effective, family-supported learning for rural students who should not be required to leave home for extended periods to gain their qualifications.”

Hauora Taiwhenua members are keen to support the hubs, the trainees involved, and the health workers providing the training. Structured correctly, this could see a vital pipeline of rural health workers to oversee the health of rural communities into the future.

ENDS

Media Contact
Sajan Patel
Communications Coordinator

021 472 556
sajan.patel@htrhn.org.nz