“A rural hospital can be compared to a ketei – whereby like the flax strands, culture, ideology and values are interwoven with systems, workforce, facilities, social and geographical context to become a purposeful provider of rural health care.”

The rural hospital kete: Ruth Upsdell 2017

In 2002 students and faculty of Otago University’s postgraduate rural programme, (then in the Department of General Practice and Rural Health, Dunedin School of Medicine), wrote a document titled ‘The Good Rural Hospital’ which has since been core reading for the paper GENA724: ‘The Context of Rural Hospital Medicine’. The intent in writing this 2017 document was to update the original document given the intervening period of 15 years.

This document was written by the 2017 students and faculty of GENA724 ‘The Context of Rural Hospital Medicine’ paper (now part of the post-graduate rural programme, Department of the Dean, Dunedin School of Medicine) with input from the wider post graduate rural programme faculty.

This is an aspirational document describing the specific role of the hospital as one part of wider rural health services. While recognising that there is and needs to be a wide variation of rural hospitals in New Zealand the document’s focus is on commonalities that define rural hospital practice.

The document (like the 2002 version) is written by doctors and as such represents a significant bias towards the views of the medical team. We acknowledge that other members of the rural hospital team and the community may have a significantly different, but equally important, view of the place of the rural hospital.