Yes, you should be worried

Two GPS have spent three years travelling the country plugging gaps in overstretched practices. The experience has been eye-opening.

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After the first 2020 lockdown, a duo of Auckland GPs hit the road as locums. They had sold their practice the previous year and wanted to get back into the workforce. The couple's ideal destination, Dr N* writes, is "a town that's big enough for a small hospital, has a few restaurants and is close to the best of the great outdoors".

Over the past three years, they have taken up the patient load all over the motu: Motueka, Rotorua and Invercargill have been some of their favourite stops. Here, Dr Nwrites of a recent day on the general practice frontline in another small centre.

The job of caring for people's health is a privilege and a responsibility, but it's also stressful and unrewarding at times. Let me share a morning from last week.

We arrive at 8am, deposit last night's leftovers into the fridge for lunch and grab a coffee. Someone has made a carrot cake for morning tea, so it's going to be a good day.

I make a start on the inbox letters and lab results before the patients start arriving. The first is a well-dressed woman who states she has insurance and wants three referrals. Please. She knows the names of the specialists she wants to see. A dermatologist for mild eczema, a urologist because she's had two urinary tract infections, and a neurologist because she gets headaches. And isn't it ridiculous, she says, that the insurance company insists she gets a GP referral.

I try offering her advice and explain that specialists are for problems that can't be managed in primary care. She starts getting loud, so I do what I'm told and tell myself that specialist visits might relieve her anxiety, even though it will result in increased insurance premiums for everyone else.