Stewart Island Residents Have Gone a Decade Without a GP and Are Paying the Price

Stewart Island, known to Māori as Rakiura, is one of New Zealand’s most remote and beloved communities. Its 480 or so residents share their island with kiwi, dotterel, and some of the darkest skies in the southern hemisphere. What they have not had for at least ten years is a resident general practitioner.

For people living on Rakiura, getting medical attention means getting on a plane. That small plane costs money, takes the better part of a day, and drops you in Invercargill — where, if you are lucky, a GP can see you in six weeks.

Shona Sangster knows this reality well. She is registered with a practice on the mainland, a routine arrangement for many island residents, but the logistics are anything but routine. “I’m registered with a practice in Invercargill and it’s six weeks to get an appointment with my GP,” she told RNZ.

For Angela Karaitiana, the frustration is equally plain. “You can’t just pop to the doctor here — you have to get a flight. It takes you a day out of work and your life,” she said.

The island currently operates with one nurse practitioner and two clinical nurse specialists, equivalent to 1.6 full-time positions. That team provides primary care for a dispersed population, managing everything from chronic conditions to acute illness. But last July, all three staff were unavailable at once due to illness, leaving the island with no healthcare workers at all for three days.

A community survey of 78 residents carried out in October last year painted a picture of significant financial strain and anxiety. Residents described the cost of mainland trips as a genuine barrier to seeking care. Elderly people and pregnant women — those with the most pressing and predictable health needs — must arrange to leave the island for appointments that elsewhere would be a short drive away. The burden falls disproportionately on those least able to carry it.

Bruce Ford reflected what many islanders have quietly internalised about their situation. “You tend to be a bit cautious about what you want and even now if you want to have an appointment they say ‘oh we can see you in three weeks’ time,’” he said.

That kind of self-rationing — holding off on health concerns, weighing up whether something is worth the cost and disruption of travel — is a known consequence of poor access to primary care. It leads to conditions being managed less well, caught later, or not at all. For a community this small and this isolated, there is no fallback if something goes wrong in a hurry.

Health New Zealand has acknowledged the situation and says it is pursuing a phased review of services on the island. Options under consideration include visiting doctors on a regular rotation and expanded use of digital health consultations. What it has ruled out, at least for now, is a full-time resident GP.

That decision sits uneasily with residents who have watched the status quo stretch across a decade without resolution. A visiting model requires the visiting doctor to be available at the right time, and telehealth consultations have their limits when a patient needs a physical examination or an urgent response. The island’s remoteness is not a problem that a phone call or a video screen can fully solve.

Not every islander is entirely dissatisfied. Helen Cave offered a more measured view of the current nursing-led model. “They’ve got good backup, they’re communicative, they do your blood tests. I think we’ve got a better service than if you were in Invercargill,” she said. It is a perspective that speaks to the genuine skill and dedication of the nursing staff on the island rather than any suggestion that the underlying arrangement is adequate or sustainable.

Rakiura is far from alone in this predicament. Rural and remote communities across New Zealand face persistent shortages of GPs, driven by an ageing medical workforce, training pipelines concentrated in urban centres, and the financial incentives that draw doctors to larger practices. Successive governments have acknowledged the problem for years. Progress has been slow and the gap between rural and urban health outcomes has stubbornly refused to close.

What makes Stewart Island’s situation particularly pointed is its wider profile. This is a community that draws visitors from around the world to walk the Rakiura Track, peer at kiwi in the dark, and experience one of the last genuinely wild corners of the country. The same isolation that makes it special makes delivering services to it difficult and expensive. The residents who live there year-round, maintaining the community and the ecosystem that visitors come to experience, deserve better than a decade-old gap in the most fundamental of services.

The phased review that Health New Zealand has committed to will be watched closely by people who have been patient for a very long time. Residents have made clear what they need. Whether the official response matches the scale of that need — and arrives before the nursing team burns out — remains to be seen.

Do you live in a rural community with limited access to healthcare? Share your experience in the comments below.