“Beyond broken” GPs warn primary care crisis is deepening.

GPs are sounding the alarm, and it’s getting harder to dismiss as “workforce pressures” or a few isolated complaints.

This week on RNZ Morning Report, Whangārei GP Dr Geoff Cunningham described general practice funding as “beyond broken”, saying doctors are now doing nearly half their work unpaid, often after hours and on weekends.

He spoke about 11-hour days, endless paperwork, and GPs leaving for better-paid, lower-stress work like telehealth, skin cancer clinics, ADHD services and cannabis prescribing.

Then today, Canterbury GP Dr Dermot Coffey told RNZ Morning Report he no longer recommends general practice to medical students.

A GP shortage is one thing. GPs actively discouraging medical students from entering the field is something else entirely.

Both doctors pointed to the same issue: a funding model built for a healthcare system that no longer exists. GP clinics are trying to manage increasingly complex care in 10- to 15-minute appointments, while absorbing more admin, hospital overflow, and unpaid work every year.

Meanwhile, politicians continue to talk about easing pressure through pharmacists, AI tools, or future medical schools.

Some of those ideas may help. But none of them replaces properly funding primary care.

Because when general practice starts collapsing under pressure, people don’t magically get healthier. They end up in already-overloaded emergency departments and hospitals instead.

If the government is serious about improving healthcare access, then funding primary care properly has to be part of the answer.

Right now, too much of the system is being held together by unpaid labour and exhausted clinicians.

Budget 2026 is less than three weeks away. If primary care really is the backbone of the health system, this is where the Government needs to prove it.