Pharmac said it was closely monitoring supply risks associated with the crisis.
The impact of travel costs was mostly affecting patients, he said, rather than the doctors themselves.
“Of course, petrol has gone up massively, but I don’t think there are genuinely GPs who think they can’t drive to work through the cost of petrol.”
Jo Scott-Jones, a rural GP in Ōpōtiki and Tokoroa and clinical director for the Pinnacle Midlands Health Network, said already some rural patients were reluctant to make the trip to the GP or specialist appointments at hospitals.
“I think people really try and prioritise those things, but I have no doubt that that is happening,” he said.
He said virtual consultations became commonplace during Covid, and he would like to see hospitals gear up to provide virtual outreach into the community now.
While there would be times when the specialist needed to examine a patient in person, he said, follow-up appointments for many conditions, including post-operative follow-ups, could “very easily be done via telehealth”.
If these appointments were held within a general practice, a nurse could sit alongside the patient to assist with practical checks like blood pressure, he said.
“We would have a session a week ... offering a virtual out-patient service for the hospital, and they could timetable patients to come into the surgery in Ōpōtiki, rather than making the trip to Whakatāne or Tauranga,” he said.
It would mean shifting some of the burden of care from the hospital to the GP, “and obviously that needs to come with some resources”.
The Government announced last month that almost 150,000 families would receive an extra $50 a week to help with petrol costs and, on Thursday, announced it was temporarily increasing the mileage rate for home and community support workers by 30%.
