Nicola-Mary Geraghty grew up on a farm. The local doctors inspired her, caring and conscientious on their house calls.
But it was a med school work placement in Kawhia, on the North Island’s West Coast, that really won her over to practising rural medicine.
She was staying with the local doctor. “I was seeing the 24-hour life, because he was always on call. And I would have days where I would hang out with paramedics, or I’d go to people’s houses for dinner, or go to the local marae.
“They would encourage me to go fishing, and to dig hot water pools at the beach, and to just really chat to people.”
Asked what the clincher was, and she doesn’t hesitate. “I knew that I was going to a rural place, but I do remember one time that we were waiting for a patient to arrive,” she recalls.
“And then we heard the noise of a tractor – and they’d showed up in their big John Deere. They just parked outside the GP, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever!”
Geraghty’s experience resonates with the experience of New Zealand’s healthcare sector, as medical practices and pharmacies and other health businesses work desperately to find ways to recruit and retain staff, when they can’t compete with overseas salaries.
A new Health Sector Insight Report from BNZ says it’s a real problem. After two years of Covid, health workers are exhausted, burnt out, and struggling with their mental health. Many want out.
Those employers successfully turning the tide aren’t doing it with lucrative remuneration packages. They’re offering their staff, and their families, a whole-of-life experience.
BNZ surveyed 184 of its business customers in the healthcare sector. Four out of five say they’re impacted by the labour shortage.
Most say their remaining staff are suffering burnout. Two out of five say their customers are being hit by delays. And it’s affecting service levels, prices and revenues for many.
New Zealand is not alone in this. In the UK, a study published in Human Resources for Health this month says there is an immediate need to develop a cohesive strategy to address workforce shortfalls. “Recruiting a more diverse workforce, ensuring worker wellbeing and safety, and providing education and career development are essential to meet the current and future needs of the care economy,” it says.
So too in the US, where a study published last week in the American Journal of Public Health says the US public health workforce crisis is at the heart of public health’s future. The US needs to train or recruit 80,000 new healthcare workers.
The Deloitte 2024 Global Health Care Sector Outlook, published this week, mirrors the BNZ findings: Clinician burnout is one of the key causes of the health care sector’s labour shortages. It says providers looking to help improve their recruitment and retention may need to consider transforming their care models and redesigning jobs.
All this means New Zealand is competing with other countries for skilled workers, but it can also learn from them about how to solve its own workforce crisis.
Thom McKenzie, BNZ’s head of health, says New Zealand needs to think about new ways to compete for targeted healthcare sector talent. It can’t match Australia’s salaries, and work environments here are more demanding.
Yet for skilled migrants, New Zealand offers an attractive lifestyle. A new approach embraced by some employers is “optimising the personal economy” of skilled workers – whether existing staff or new recruits, whether from New Zealand or overseas.
This means going beyond jobs and salaries, and instead offering support for everything that people value, such as their family, passions, and aspirations. When a person’s own economy is thriving, they not only settle for the long term, but they also become advocates, the BNZ argues in its report.
“The sector undoubtedly needs better pathways for attracting, and retaining skilled migrants, as well as smart localised training and development opportunities for young professionals,” McKenzie says. “We need a lot more people to enter the healthcare workforce.”
He understands this. Like Geraghty, he grew up in small town New Zealand. For him, that town was Waipukurau. And as he moved first to Christchurch, then to London, and then to Auckland, he discovered anew the importance of community, as well as employment.
When he and his partner moved to Auckland, they had a six-month-old baby son. Neither had a job. But he joined a touch rugby team, and played football, and got a job at BNZ – a big employer with social opportunities. All of that was important for him and his partner, in finding their feet.
And, of course, this country’s lifestyle was attractive. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in New Zealand?”
Now, preparing this report, he’s been talking to recruiters. They’ve told him they don’t just stop at finding people a job with a decent remuneration package; they work with new appointees as they establish themselves, in their communities.
The solutions to the workforce crisis lie in recruiting migrants, and training up more locals, but also, perhaps most important of all, retaining good staff.
“Those people that are coming to jobs here, we don’t want them to be here only a short period. We want them to be here permanently, or for a very long time. So those wraparound services help them really establish themselves into New Zealand.”
For Nicola-Mary Geraghty, being part of the Kawhia community, even briefly, was one of the greatest experiences she’s had at medical school. She believes employers need to get their new recruits – whether med students on placement, or new hires – involved with the community, not just the GP they’re working alongside.
“Then, you see that they can actually be friends with their patients and have connections in the community,” she says. “I think that sort of the biggest hurdle really is just making people feel included and connected.”
