{"id":504036,"date":"2026-07-01T06:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T06:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/504036\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T06:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T06:14:10","slug":"gisborne-hospital-chief-medical-officer-speaks-about-improved-staff-vacancy-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/504036\/","title":{"rendered":"Gisborne Hospital chief medical officer speaks about improved staff vacancy position"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gisborne Hospital has 57 fulltime equivalent (FTE) permanent and fixed-term senior medical officers (senior doctors) and a 28% vacancy rate, meaning 22 positions are vacant.<\/p>\n

Dr Zeyneloglu said this did not mean \u201c28% of the work is not being done\u201d.<\/p>\n

The vacancy rate did not reflect the quality of care patients received. All hospital departments were operating despite ongoing shortages, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year before I joined we had a significant [senior doctors] vacancy rate and it did have an impact on the operations of the hospital. I do recognise that, but we are far away from that position right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gisborne Herald recently reported Health Minister Simeon Brown as saying the vacancy rate would be down to 10%<\/a> by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Zeyneloglu acknowledged that but said it \u201cis absolutely not in our control\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like many hospitals around the country, Gisborne has a mix of permanent staff and fixed-term locum doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our workforce is international just like myself \u2013 I moved from the US \u2013 [and] we get a lot of doctors from the United States, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overseas staff could be delayed because of issues such as paperwork, visas and registration, or family issues, he said.<\/p>\n

The rate could also depend on whether current senior medical staff stayed until the new staff arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really control those and if things like that happen, life issues, you know, that will also have an impact on our rate as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twelve new staff were expected to start before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

While choosing to work as a locum could often be a lifestyle choice for some doctors, he said some fixed-term arrangements had led to permanent positions.<\/p>\n

Zeyneloglu said locums brought excellent skills from their home countries and it would be difficult for smaller communities like Gisborne to create that kind of workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of gives us this very diverse community and medicine is medicine … [it] doesn\u2019t matter where you practise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeyneloglu said the hospital was working to have a closer partnership with iwi and primary care practices.<\/p>\n

Drawing on his experience in the US, he said one of the biggest differences between the two healthcare systems was not having to worry about whether patients had health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the US, healthcare is basically a business. It\u2019s not wh\u0101nau-focused, it\u2019s money-focused.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have to worry about \u2018does this patient have health insurance\u2019 when they\u2019re in front of me, when I\u2019m ordering tests or writing prescriptions, I know they will get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeyneloglu earned his medical degree from Ege University School of Medicine in Izmir, Turkey, and completed his residency in internal medicine and paediatrics at Yale University\/Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gisborne Hospital has 57 fulltime equivalent (FTE) permanent and fixed-term senior medical officers (senior doctors) and a 28%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1443,3937,10709,100174,6097,12506,134,527,10938,2241,18845,296,37056,3523,3234,251439,111,139,69,10932,82487,8998,381,6448,205,251441,17213,1516,30279,242092,102,251440],"class_list":["post-504036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-about","tag-chief","tag-concerns","tag-discuss","tag-down","tag-gisborne","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-herald","tag-hospital","tag-improved","tag-into","tag-leonie","tag-medical","tag-months","tag-nejat","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-outcomes","tag-position","tag-region","tag-reporter","tag-role","tag-sheehan","tag-speaks","tag-staff","tag-tairwhiti","tag-vacancy","tag-with","tag-zeyneloglu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}