Aotearoa / New Zealand

He puts the problem down to pay. New Zealand is not matching the conditions gastroenterologists can enjoy abroad.

"Australia is always knocking on our back doorstep, so we can make two or three times as much money if we worked in Australia."

Short-staffing creates a self-perpetuating problem, he says.

"The trouble is, if you've got two doctors working somewhere that should be four or five or six, who's going to apply to be number three?"

We are never going to be able to pay our doctors and nurses two or three times what we pay them now. It's just not going to happen. We need to get creative because we can't continue the way we are doing things.

This government is trying desperately to gut the public healthcare system so they can force privatisation on us and it seems to be working looking at how many people have to resort to private healthcare to get life saving procedures.

I suggest we form a partnership with a hospital in Thailand, Vietnam, India, Malaysia or another health holiday destination and arrange for monthly flights to send patients who need procedures like this. It might be cheaper than funding the private hospitals here.

Of course we also need to open the floodgates for doctors from other countries who are willing to move here and work for the wages we can afford to pay them.