An experienced Northland GP who hung up her stethoscope last week is hitting out at health bosses over the way primary care workers are treated.
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Dr Melissa Gilbert-Smith was a nurse for 10 years and a doctor for a further 20 and had been considering leaving her practice for some time to pursue other interests.
She told First Up the decision to sell her shares and resign from Kensington Health in Whangārei was made a whole lot easier by the inevitable surge in demand the clinic will face when the Omicron outbreak peaks in Northland in the coming weeks or months.
"We did have the luxury of having six months watching the rest of the world go through stuff yet still we're flying by the seat of our pants and I feel like general practice, primary care has been dumped on the most," she said.
"[There's] just this expectation that we will change overnight what we're doing with no resource, no support and no consultation."
She was also unhappy about recent comments made by Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who said that although health workers were under a lot of pressure at the moment, there was no crisis in the sector.
"We definitely don't have the people. I read something a few weeks ago that we're 1400 doctors down nationwide. How is that not a crisis?"
Gilbert-Smith said she was also sick of finding out about new policy before health workers like her were able to have their say on it.
"To be told by health officials through the media their version of my reality- it's demeaning, it's demoralising and it actually absolves responsibility as well. And I'm going to be really pleased to not be part of that."
Nonetheless, she was full of praise for frontline workers and her colleagues at Kensington Health.
"We've got an amazing team - an amazing team - and I kind of think of us as 'in-spite-of'.
"You know, we foot the bill for all the infrastructure change because there's no extra funding for creating red and green zones within your practice [during the pandemic]."
It was time for health officials to spend some time on the shop floor listening to GPs and other primary care workers, she said.
"I think they're just so removed from the coal face. This is the problem. The decision makers don't come to our practices.
"To be perfectly honest, the mouthpieces for general practice that speak with the ministry, they don't hear us either - they're not in our practices finding out what we need. They're speaking on our behalf without speaking to us."
The Ministry of Health has been approached for comment.
