Who'd be a Country GP?

Golden Bay's current high standard of medical and health care is maintained through the efforts of highly committed people, in spite of fragmented services.
Picture this.  Our GP has had a long week.  He (all in Golden Bay currently are "he's") has had a full caseload, a whole range of meetings, and now he's got the weekend on call.  He's tired, and feeling guilty and frustrated that he's not seen much of his family all week, let alone caught up on a few chores at home or got a bit of exercise.  Then of course there's the never ending admin, reading and ongoing education that's part of the unseen side of his job.

The weekend is no picnic either - the calls come any time of the day or night, and can be relentless, one after the other.  They can involve gory farm or fishing accidents with lots of blood, elderly people who have chronic conditions like ulcers, a heart attack, a very sick baby with a mystery ailment, a car accident, a sporting injury. Some calls could have waited until Monday - but he understands patients who feel it's better to be safe, than sorry.

He deals with these call-outs, these decisions, and this trauma by himself.  Sometimes he can deal with calls by phone, sometimes people meet him at the medical centre rooms or the hospital, sometimes it's at the site of the incident and involves calling out the helicopter to get people quickly to Nelson.

For GPs it's lonely, scary, incredibly tiring and draining.  It involves missed meals, missed sleep, admin work continuing to bank up. Sometimes patients have psychiatric disorders or are drunk or violent.

Who says country folk have a less stressful life?  And so it's no wonder why young GPs say no-thanks to traditional rural practice?

Fast disappearing is the old-style practice where doctors run their own businesses, employ their own support staff and deal with all of the bureaucracy that the health system demands, so it can be accountable to taxpayers. 

Over the past couple of years a number of trainees have come here for periods of work experience with the doctors √ none have shown any interest in staying to work and live.  It is just too demanding.