KEY POINTS:
A Government scheme to send graduate vets, teachers, doctors, nurses and midwives to in-need areas could help reverse the brain drain and reduce student debt, but some warn it is just a "brick in the wall" solution.
Under the Voluntary Bonding Scheme, doctors and veterinary graduates could
receive $50,000 towards their student loan over five years, while developing their careers in rural or under-resourced areas.
Midwives and teachers would receive $3500 and nurses $2833 a year.
They must work in a hard-to-staff provincial community for three years in order to receive their first payment, and will be paid annually for two years after that.
Medical Students' Association president William Perry said it would address the mass exodus of medical school graduates, but would not reverse the trend.
"You can't build a wall with one brick but this is at least one brick and going towards helping New Zealand's health workforce situation," Mr Perry said.
The average medical student can graduate owing more than $80,000, and many claim they can repay their debt twice as fast if they work overseas.
The association's figures show 30 per cent of students plan to leave three years after graduation.
Canterbury University sixth-year medical student Liz Carr said she was seriously considering moving overseas when she graduated but would now consider trying a rural location for five years.
Her loan is $76,000, with two years of study to go.
"Five years is not the rest of your life," she said.
AUT dean of the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences Max Abbott said the scheme "needs to be a bit more sophisticated but we can learn from it".
He said the Government should be open to extending the scheme in cases where health boards were short of health professionals, such as mental health, radiologists or physiotherapists.
Labour health spokeswoman Ruth Dyson, said she hoped to see training opportunities in small, isolated areas.
Junior doctors should be able to develop skills and would need a stable senior workforce on hand to supervise and train them. "Otherwise this is just window dressing," she said.
Grant Guilford of Massey University vet school said the incentive scheme showed "intelligent use of student debt".
Veterinary students graduate with a debt of about $45,000 to $50,000 and their starting salary was about the same.
He said most New Zealand graduates were interested in rural practice, but tended to work for just one or two years before going overseas.
He hoped that after five years the graduates would always consider returning to rural veterinary practise in New Zealand even if they then did a stint overseas.
Graduate teachers who are sent to hard-to-staff decile one schools, or who teach under-staffed subjects like chemistry, mathematics, te reo and music will receive an incentive payment of $3500 a year.
Frances Nelson, president of the education sector union NZEI, said the bonding payment would benefit indebted graduates as well as communities in hard-to-staff areas, but said what the decile one schools really needed was experienced teachers.
WHAT IT MEANS
Doctors - $10,000 per year
Midwives - $3500
Nurses - $2833
Teachers - $3500
Vets - $11,000
Total cost - More than $20m over three years
