One of Kaipara’s biggest medical centres which is looking after over 12,000 registered patients is down half its doctors due to the ongoing medical staff shortage.

Northland’s west coast clinicians are increasingly struggling to deliver health services with Dargaville Medical Centre now reporting that of 12 fulltime equivalent (FTE) doctors, they currently only have six FTE working out of the clinic.

This comes after Rawene Hospital had to temporarily suspend its after-hours services at the end of August.

Hokianga residents are still asked to go to the hospitals in Kaitāia or the Bay of Islands if they require urgent care after 5pm as staffing issues at Rawene haven’t been resolved yet.

While Dargaville Hospital says it could still fill its roster and didn’t have to scale back its services, the neighbouring medical centre had to reduce its peripheral clinics and make changes to how they deliver healthcare in the community.

One of the general practice owners, Dr Neil Hopkins, said Dargaville Medical Centre was significantly down on medical staff after a number of people left and the practice hasn’t been able to replace them.

Hopkins and his colleagues run regular clinics in Ruawai, Te Kōpuru, Pouto and Waipoua as well as the local rest homes but had to cancel these on occasion.

“We’re particularly challenged if we have a tight roster,” Hopkins said. “Some of us do quite a lot more shifts than it is ideal.”

Dargaville Medical Centre also runs a drop-in clinic for patients who need to be seen urgently but wait times can now exceed two hours for those who are triaged as least urgent.

GP consultations have to be booked several weeks, sometimes more than a month in advance.

Hopkins said the medical team acknowledged that long wait times can be frustrating.

“We’re working hard to recruit from here and overseas. But here there is a lot of demand that we’re competing with.

“We’d like patients to know that if they need to be seen earlier, there are services in place.”

If patients require an earlier appointment than available, health staff from the medical centre can triage them.

“Don’t wait until it gets worse,” Hopkins said.

To navigate the staff shortage, the practice changed some of its operational procedures including giving nurses more responsibilities under supervision. Meanwhile, health workers are picking up nurses’ duties.

The medical centre has also hired a nurse practitioner who can give out prescriptions.

“We are also arranging to do a lot more prescriptions on the telephone rather than making an appointment while those are short in supply.”

Hopkins stressed that despite these challenges, the medical staff was keen to keep up with screening and immunisations of their patients, including smears and diabetes screening.