On Farm Story
28 FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – June 28, 2021
FAMILY TIES: From left, Michael Hall, Jessica Hall, Georgia Hall (in front), Joanne Gardyne, John Gardyne, Kayla Gardyne and Jono Gardyne. Photo: Heidi Horton
Caring for the rural community An endless appetite for work is a feature of many young farming couples, but as Neal Wallace discovers, by any measure Southlanders Jono and Kayla Gardyne have shown an exceptional commitment to their futures – albeit in different areas.
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HE tribe of magpies chose the wrong time to invade the Gardyne property. A shotgun resting against a wall was evidence Kayla could no longer handle the disruptive noise and activity outside her home office window, as she studied for her medical degree. The pests progressively came off second best with six magpies dispatched, reinforcing that not only were they unwelcome, but that Kayla needed to focus on her studies. “They (magpies) got cunning and knew when I was moving and going to have a pop at them. I had to be prepared,” Kayla said. Several rabbits that attacked her prized vegetable garden as she studied suffered a similar fate. The small dent in the local pest population is symptomatic of a hectic past six years for the Gardynes.
As Kayla, 29, studied medicine, husband Jono, 31, was cementing their partnership in a large complex family livestock and arable farm near Waikaka, about 30km north of Gore. The Gardynes farm 550ha, with Jono’s parents John and Joanne, on which they run 3000 ewes, winter 2000 dairy cows, grow cereal and winter feed crops and finish between 6000 and 7000 lambs a year. Their farm is run in conjunction with Jono’s sister and brother-inlaw’s nearby property of a similar size and diverse mix. It is a complex and busy business. The 480ha cropping business is based on core crops of oats, autumn and spring-sown feed barley and feed wheat, fodder beet and kale, but they have grown other crops, such as canola, on the home farm, as well as under contract on neighbouring properties.
HARVEST TIME: Headers at work on the Gardyne family farm in Southland.
In addition, they run a contracting business to utilise their two harvesters. Last season they harvested 1100ha. “Cropping is a large part of our year,” Jono said. Lamb trading is an additional busy activity. They aim to have their own lambs killed by February and then buy replacement store lambs which are finished and killed, with the last gone by the end of April.
Medicine alone won’t fix the workforce issues, with shortages of almost all allied health professionals being a very real reality in rural areas. Kayla Gardyne Trainee medical intern For the past six years, Kayla has had an additional focus. Since 2012, she was working as a nurse at the Gore Medical Centre but was keen to advance her career. She started postgraduate study to become a nurse practitioner, which involved a Master’s degree. A postgraduate degree would provide Gardyne with new skills to increase her nursing scope of practice and ultimately could have given her a choice of pursuing a more advanced clinical or research career. But Gardyne realised this could create job security challenges locally, but also the timeframe for the qualification was similar to that for medicine.
“It became obvious that medicine was the better choice for me,” she said. And that is what she did. “I was incredibly well supported by my medical centre colleagues and of course by Jono, family and friends as I undertook this major career change. “I could not have made it this far without so many of these wonderful cheerleaders.” Kayla saw on a daily basis the struggle rural practices have recruiting general practitioners (GPs), many surviving by recruiting predominantly foreign locums. Although short-term locums have been a regular feature of rural general practice, Kayla says they often only provide temporary solutions to long-term staffing issues. She says information from the Royal College of General Practitioners Division of Rural Hospital Medicine highlights the perilous state of rural New Zealand practice, with an impending GP workforce shortage. “Rural areas are likely to be disproportionately affected,” she said. Last year, half of GPs working in rural-based practices obtained their first medical degree overseas, compared with 34% of GPs in urban-based practices. She says around 10% of New Zealanders depend on rural hospitals for their healthcare and half of rural hospital doctors also work in general practice, reflecting the diverse and dual training pathway for those choosing to specialise in this area. Despite the pressures of working in rural medicine, data supplied by the Royal College
has found 80% of rural hospital doctors say they are likely to recommend it as a career, with only 5% saying they were unlikely to do so. However, succession planning for rural hospital medical staff is crucial given more than 25% intend retiring in the next five years and a further 18% in six to 10 years’ time. “The medical staff shortage really adds importance to my decision to undertake further study and into the Nursing Council’s development of the Nursing Practitioner’s role,” she said. “I do think it (the Nursing Practitioner’s role) is filling a healthcare gap and providing nursing pathways to upskill and extend practice scope. “I think the value of Nursing Practitioners is being increasingly realised. “Medicine alone won’t fix the workforce issues, with shortages of almost all allied health professionals being a very real reality in rural areas. “We all need one another to provide the best care.” For five years Kayla spent Monday to Friday predominantly living in Dunedin while studying at the University of Otago Medical School, then she would return home to the farm and help out as she was needed, shifting stock or doing other farm chores. “At weekends it was back to being a farmer’s wife,” she said. To stay focused, she treated her studies as a job, devoting specific times when she would hit the books. During her first year of medical studies when Kayla sat and had to pass the competitive Health Sciences course to progress to
