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Dr Stuart Phillips says rural practices are suffering under a shortage of GPs. “We can’t physically look after them. if you try and squeeze too many people then you re working on eight-minute consultations, and then you start to make mistakes, or people don t get heard properly.” Wait times for appointments average three weeks in Phillips’ practice. With the frustration and stress that both rural patients and doctors feel, he can see small practices dying off. Phillips is the only permanent fulltime doctor, the other two are locums. In a fortnight he will lose one of those staff members, and although he will gain two more, one will only be working for a week and the other just two months.
Seeking a new challenge for the decade, I asked the recruitment agency, “Does the board of New Zealand Rural General Practice Network expect candidates to have health industry knowledge?