National PRIME Committee

Te Whatu Ora leaders' presentation about their plans for a Rural Hospital Sustainability Project was well received but as far as we know, has not gained the traction we'd hoped for - most likely as the Hospital and Specialist services team are carrying a massive workload. However, this is no consolation for the NGO rural hospitals and rural general practices who provide medical services in their co-located Te Whatu Ora hospital. A letter from them to Margie Apa, asked her to urgently address the financial and clinical risks they face because their funding does not allow them to achieve pay parity for their clinical staff.

Recently published Rural General Practice and Ethical Issues. A Rapid Review of the Literature: by Samantha Menzies, University of Auckland, was the catalyst to our letter to the Medical Council of New Zealand requesting they work with us to review their Code of Conduct documents to reflect the realities of rural medical practice. Samantha was the recipient of our Hauora Taiwhenua and BNZ Rural Development scholarship.

Hauora Taiwhenua expresses its support for the Government’s signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of Waikato to establish a third medical school focussing on developing rural doctors.