Don’t forget to enrol
Gypsy Day is over and now is the time for dairy farming families to register with a medical practice in their new district.
The Voluntary Bonding Scheme needs to be more focused on delivering better health services for rural New Zealand, Labour spokesperson for Rural Affairs Damien O'Connor says.
The scheme was set up in 2009 to encourage newly graduated doctors, midwives, nurses and vets to take up placements in hard to staff areas and specialties. However, there is no system in place to track how many of these graduates end up in rural areas.
"Measures must be put in place to establish how well the scheme is working for rural communities and whether there needs to be another tier added to further incentivise graduates to work in rural areas," Damien O'Connor says.
"High vacancy rates and reliance on expensive locums takes a toll on the quality of service that can be provided in rural areas and places stress on medical and veterinary professionals and their staff.
"The nature of these jobs is also different in a rural setting, as compared to those in towns or cities.
"It is therefore important that we have separate statistics for rural voluntary bonding and that it is not lumped together with all hard to staff areas.
"Rural communities are the beating hearts of our primary industries, which contribute hugely to our GDP. We have to look after them," says O'Connor.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.