Dr Alan Kenny of Tokoroa says his practice has been inundated with calls from across the world after generous job package was advertised

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The New Zealand rural GP advertising a NZ$400,000 (£190,000) job at his practice has been overwhelmed by the response but says he is feeling “tired, pissed off and dispirited”.

Dr Alan Kenny of the small town of Tokoroa in the North Island has been looking for a junior doctor for two years.

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He is offering a generous package including a $400,000 income, three months of annual leave and no night or weekend work.

Since the story was picked up by the media on Tuesday his practice has fielded hundreds of calls from Brazil, Central America, Poland, Ukraine, India, Bosnia, South Africa, Canada and France along with emails and texts from interested applicants, 99% of whom, Kenny said, “were trash”.

“It is all I can do to carry on today, this is an abominable situation which is very distracting and quite ugly,” he told the Guardian by phone.

“The town has reacted with great hostility to my situation and the knowledge of what medical professionals earn. There is trash talk about me all over Facebook, and a lot of hostility from the town itself.

“I feel very stressed, my patients are unhappy and my staff are feeling under a lot of pressure. I have a throbbing headache and if a meaningful candidate emerges from this horrible experience I will be very surprised.”

Kenny said he had immediately ruled out any doctors applying who could not speak English or did not practise medicine – of which there were “dozens and dozens”.

But there were a couple of candidates with “rigorous qualifications” who he was considering. The Waikato district health board also fielded a number of calls from interested applicants, as did the NZ rural general practice network, which said on Tuesday the demand for doctors in rural New Zealand was “constant and growing”.