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Chapter 1: How does New Zealand's healthcare system rely on international doctors?
Without overseas doctors, New Zealand's struggling health system would be flatlining.
In the U.S., where I practiced, everyone was from the U.S. for the most part, versus here in Palmy Lake. I do not believe there's a single New Zealand-born emergency medicine doctor in our department.
How dire would our situation be if we didn't get these doctors in from, say, the U.K. and the U.S.?
We would be even more on our knees than we already are.
Hi, I'm Amanda Gillies, and today on The Detail, New Zealand's dependence on international doctors. We look at why so many are moving here, especially to our smaller towns, the benefits, the drawbacks, and if they actually do stick around. This story follows Timaru making a front-page splash in the States last month.
Timaru found itself on the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week in a story about US doctors moving to work here.
It's pretty exciting, isn't it? It's nice to be noticed on the world stage and quite a neat little story behind it. So, you know, I think it's pretty cool.
Today we talk to the Mayor of Timaru as well as the Policy Director at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, which has just completed a report, recruited globally, neglected locally, which asked overseas trained members about their biggest challenges.
One of the things that really struck us about the survey was how doctors who had been here for some time saw an erosion in the health care system that they arrived into. So when they came here, they found that they felt privileged to be here and privileged to be working in such a system. And now they see a system that is
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Chapter 2: What challenges do overseas doctors face when moving to New Zealand?
I feel like the whole town, the whole hospital has been very welcoming, very helpful. When we first got here, almost everyone we met met us with open arms. It's kind of a silly story, but one of the first things that happened when we got here that kind of cemented that we were in the correct place is we were trying to get some furniture on Facebook Marketplace.
And we needed to measure to see if it was the correct size to fit in the back of our rental car. So I went to Bunnings to buy a tape measure. And when I went in and told the salesperson working in the front, I was looking for a tape measure. She offered, do you want to just borrow the tape measure and bring it back since you need it for just one thing? Yeah.
And me and my wife just looked at each other and laughed because you would never get asked that in a hardware store in the United States, if you could just borrow something and bring it back. So that was just, again, I've had so many experiences like that here, whether it be in the city or in the hospital, everyone's just been really lovely and welcoming.
Welcome to New Zealand. That's fantastic. Are you surprised, though, with the growing number of international doctors from the US, from the UK, China, wherever, coming to New Zealand?
Yeah, that's been kind of shocking. Where I practiced before, I guess that is another very good difference to highlight. In the U.S. where I practiced, everyone was from the U.S. for the most part. You had an occasional person that was graduated from a foreign medical school, but it was definitely the exception more than the rule.
Versus here in Palmy, I do not believe there's a single New Zealand-born emergency medicine doctor in our department. Everyone is either from the US, from the UK, from Malaysia, from China. And so to meet people from different backgrounds, different training and different experiences, it's been really enlightening.
And it's been really cool, honestly, to work with people from such a diverse background and see how, even though we have trained in different countries and maybe different primary languages, the medicine is still the same. And there's a lot more similarities than differences.
Did you just say not one doctor in the ED where you work is born in New Zealand?
Correct. I'm 99% sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're all, none of us are born from New Zealand. I believe there are a few people that were either born in the UK and then did a lot of their training in New Zealand. But I do not know of anyone that is born in New Zealand that is an emergency medicine physician in our department out of the 17 or 18 of us that there are.
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Chapter 3: How does the work-life balance differ for doctors in New Zealand compared to the U.S.?
They're looking for alternatives.
I bet. And what are the benefits for us of having them here?
Well, I mean, there's huge benefits, both from the breadth and the depth of the knowledge that they're coming with. They're bringing connections to universities, to international research institutions. Our medical students and registrars are getting hugely valuable experience and building networks and connections with these doctors.
And in turn, those doctors are getting something from us and their families are too. And what about drawbacks?
Because it's not always easy to, A, move across the other side of the world, work in different hospitals, and also for our doctors and medical staff to have these people from the outside coming in.
Yeah, there's a massive set of challenges, and that's not just with anyone moving countries. With the health sector, there are layers of differences. And one of the things that we found from our survey is that very few international medical graduates, when they're coming to Aotearoa, were getting any sort of orientation on the New Zealand health system.
And we do have a couple of more interesting quirks that one may not experience depending on where they come from. For example, our primary care general practice layer of the health system is largely privatised. There are user co-payments with that. And we have things like ACC and Pharmac and things that may not be totally reflected in the country and system that they're used to practising it.
And that could lead to this. There's high turnover, with more than 60% leaving within two years.
Now I want to know, Harriet, once we get them here and we train them and they get used to the beautiful lifestyle, how good are we actually at retaining these doctors for years? Are they only here for one or two years, or are they in here for the long haul?
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Chapter 4: What cultural differences do international doctors experience in New Zealand?
We've got growing crews and other industries as well. So I think it's just a small step in the right direction.
Dr Dusty Bratton believes due to the current political situation in the States, more American doctors will apply for jobs here in the coming months.
It's really concerning. And it's also just really embarrassing seeing how our country is behaving sometimes right now. And I do think that will probably drive more people to other countries, whether it be New Zealand or other places. So I do expect to see an uptick in American trained and American working doctors looking for kind of an escape hatch.
Coming places like here, which I cannot think of a better landing spot, if anyone is looking for a place to come, than New Zealand. So I expect we'll see a lot more of that in the coming years.
Fantastic. And a very important question, Dusty. How long are you planning to stay? Are you a one-year, two-year wonder, or are you here long-term?
We'd love to be long-term. We came in with the idea that we're going to wait at least two years before we even consider making a decision on where to go next. We really want to absorb the culture, the community. So assuming that everything keeps going well from the hospital here and that my wife can find employment here in Palmy, we're hoping to be a long-term thing.
Music
That's it for today. The Detail is a Newsroom production supported by RNZ and New Zealand On Air. Thank you to Harriet Wilde, Dusty Bratton and Nigel Bowen. This episode was produced by Gwen McClure and engineered by Jeremy Ansell. I'm Amanda Gillies. MÄ te wÄ.
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