No panacea for rural health

An increase in the number of resident visas granted to health workers under the new 2021 Resident Visa scheme, may not be enough to fill the gap in the rural sector, Rural News reports. “Ideally, we need to train more local doctors and nurses for New Zealand,” says Chief executive of the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network, Dr Grant Davidson. But Dr Samantha Murton, president of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP), says that is not as simple as that. She says there are only two medical schools which offer courses in rural general practice: the University of Auckland and the University of Otago.