Rural Health Alliance: Time to call in the promises

Michelle Thompson wants to talk to two new ministers without delay.

The Rural Health Alliance of Aotearoa New Zealand (RHAANZ) is calling for urgent meetings with the incoming health and primary industries ministers to help solve what it says is a serious rural health crisis.

Chief executive Michelle Thompson said RHAANZ has articulated its priorities and solutions in its rural health road map, a 10 to 15-year plan for growing healthy rural communities, and looked forward to working with the new government.

"We are especially keen to pick up discussions on Labour's election promise to address core inequities of access to health services for rural people, and NZ First's election pledges to develop a national rural and provincial health services plan and to increase health research and development funding to 2 per cent of GDP over 10 years," she said.

"All three coalition parties have expressed a strong commitment to improving mental health and wellbeing services, reviewing primary care funding and the national travel assistance scheme, addressing rural health workforce issues, as well as an increased focus on resilience and prevention.

"This aligns well with the framework for rural mental health developed by RHAANZ and some of the early work we have done towards suicide prevention and we look forward to synergies with these policy commitments."

The new government had the chance to appoint a rural health commissioner, as Australia had just done, she added, to provide independent advice on rural health.

"The government needs to help remove barriers so rural people's health is considered just as important as those who live in cities," she said.

Rural New Zealand's population of more than 600,000 people were the equivalent of the country's second-largest city.