The mayor of Stratford fears rural GPs in Taranaki will be overwhelmed by the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out to the general population.
Stratford Mayor Neil Volzke is worried about how the region will cope with the Group 3 roll-out. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
The Medical Association agrees. It says the vaccine roll-out will push some GP practices to their limits.
Stratford is the only district in Taranaki without a dedicated vaccination clinic.
People face a drive of up to an hour to get to hubs in Hāwera or New Plymouth.
Neil Volzke was worried about how Stratford would cope with the Group 3 roll-out. That included people over 65 or with underlying health concerns or disabilities.
"The issue is really that if the health board expects the GP practices to provide this service then there will be difficulty for people because those practices are all ready busy, overworked and under a lot of pressure, particularly in the winter. It make it very difficult to get an appointment."
Volzke said there were also a number of people in the area who were not registered with a GP, so he was not sure how they would get on.
He said there were too many unanswered questions causing people anxiety.
"I'm not aware of any really organised campaign that is telling people whether they should be expecting a phone call or a message of some sort about their appointment or whether they should be initiating the contact with the GP.
"It just seems a little uncertain and people aren't aware of what they are supposed to be doing."
A Stratford practice manager - who asked not to be identified - said there had been a private meeting between GPs, the mayor and the DHB to discuss issues with the vaccination roll-out for Group 3.
She said the vaccination workload for GPs would be huge.
"It's a lot of work. It's two injections. It's not like flu jabs where you can give 10 injections in 15 minutes. You have to watch those people carefully. There's also a new software programme we have to learn.
"The thing is on top of the other work. I think it is better if they do a hub in Stratford and they do have one in Hāwera and in New Plymouth as well, but I really think they should have one in Stratford."
Medical Association deputy chairperson Vanessa Weenink says a vaccination roll-out relying on GPs might not be suitable everywhere. (File image) Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
The practice manager said GPs would also be responsible for getting in contact with all their patients and she was not sure if they would be able to cover costs.
"You do it for you patients I understand that, but the other thing is I don't know if it will be financially viable for us, because you have two nurses to draw it up and you will have more than one receptionist, because there's two different pieces of software you are running now, so the process of vaccinating a patient takes much longer."
Medical Association deputy chairperson Vanessa Weenink said the vaccine rollout would push some GP practices to their limits.
"If they were to start vaccinating now for their entire populations many of them realise that they would be doing this continuously almost without a break until the end of the year, so it's quite a daunting task."
Weenink said a vaccination roll-out relying on GPs might not be suitable everywhere.
"There's no one-size-fits-all solution for the entire country, because there are such an uneven distribution of workforce throughout New Zealand and so especially rurally there's often very few people there who that job would fall to."
In a statement, the Taranaki District Health Board said to cope with the larger number of people in Group 3 and 4, pharmacies and GPs would be coming onboard to help deliver the vaccine.
This included GPs in Stratford and Eltham.
The DHB said it would use its mobile vaccination team to supplement GPs and pharmacies in the Stratford district and was considering running a mass vaccination event in the town.