Hunt on again for rural Taihape GP

Members of a trust have again embarked on the arduous task of finding a GP willing to work in rural Taihape.
Taihape and District Medical Trust took over the provision of GP services in the Rangitikei town about two years ago, chair Diana Valentine said. This followed a decade of problems getting and keeping doctors.
The trust bought the Taihape Medical Centre GP practice and housed it in Taihape Rural Health Centre.
The practice and health centre were separate entities, but Taihape GPs also had the role of medical officer for the health centre, which had 15 beds.
Mrs Valentine said the Taihape district, with a population of about 5000 and 3600 enrolled in the practice, needed 2.4 doctors.
It had only one ? Dr Nana ? on a one-year contract which would end next February.
The situation in Taihape was part of a national and international GP shortage. In New Zealand it had started in country areas but was now spreading into cities.
Mrs Valentine said the town's long-term locum Jim Kelly left at the end of January and a new doctor was lined up to start in March but had opted out because of a family tragedy.
The town had been covered until the beginning of April by casual locums. That had been pre-arranged, Mrs Valentine said, to provide cover while the new doctors were going through the orientation process.
There was still locum coverage at the weekends, and surgery hours were as normal.
But the trust didn't want to exhaust its doctors by putting them on call every night, so there was no medical cover from 6pm to 8.30am Monday to Thursday.
People in need at those times could ring Healthline, Taihape Rural Health Centre or Whanganui Accident and Medical Clinic, or ring 111 and go to Wanganui by ambulance.
The lack of a medical officer at Taihape Rural Health Centre at night was covered by extra nursing staff and the upskilling of nurses.
The hospital could get also get advice by telephone or put patients in the town's ambulance and send them on the one and a-quarter hour journey to Wanganui Hospital.
The trust was trying to recruit another GP through about 12 different agencies, and Mrs Valentine said the community knew what was going on and was supportive.
"We're following up on every likely possibility.
"It's a stressful time for all of the staff and trustees. The process of recruitment is nearly a full-time job."
The process would take a minimum of three months, she said, because most if not all of the possible candidates would be from overseas. Weekend locums had been the only New Zealand doctors the town had had in recent years.
Difficult as it was to keep GPs in the rural Rangitikei town, Mrs Valentine said it would be impossible without financial help from Government channelled through Whanganui District Health Board and Whanganui Regional Primary Health Organisation.