Education, healthcare and social work students are still expected to do unpaid workplace placements of sometimes more than 40 hours a week on top of study and job commitments.<\/p>\n
One medical student says he has even been prescribed scurvy medication because he cannot afford fruit and vegetables, and is unable to find a job to fit around his long hours of clinical placements.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, a petition with thousands of signatures arrives at Parliament calling for change.<\/p>\n
A Wellington-based final-year medical student who RNZ has agreed not to name told\u00a0Checkpoint<\/i>\u00a0he was doing fulltime unpaid clinical placements on top of his onerous study requirements.<\/p>\n
The placements can involve weekend and night shifts, and apart from actually prescribing drugs, he is generally doing the work of a junior doctor.<\/p>\n
He said he was lucky enough to have a supportive family when he needed help, as finding a job to earn enough money to get by was tricky.<\/p>\n
“There’re not many jobs able to give me the flexibility to also complete my medical training alongside it,” the medical student said.<\/p>\n
“As a result the only option I’ve had is to cut down on my expenses.<\/p>\n
“I’ll put it bluntly. I have been cutting down pretty ruthlessly and it involves things like skipping meals or buying, quite literally, the bare essentials.”<\/p>\n
Fruit and veges were generally too expensive, and the student said his own doctor had prescribed him vitamin pills to ward off scurvy.<\/p>\n
“You just go to work hungry, chow down on that coffee in the staffroom and hope that gives you enough energy to make it through.”<\/p>\n
Advocacy group Paid Placements Aotearoa will present a petition signed by 15,000 people to Parliament on Tuesday, calling for an end to unpaid training.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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