On Thursday, 27 August the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioner’s Board unanimously agreed to cancel the Health Aotearoa conference that was set to happen in November this year.

The College have made the following statement:

‘The decision was not made lightly, especially because we’ve postponed the conference once already this year. However, it’s the right decision considering how unpredictable COVID-19 is. The College needs to act wisely, and it’s become clearer as the year has progressed that we’re likely to be moving up and down levels regularly so meeting in large numbers at a conference was no longer a reliable proposition. At level two, for example, the maximum number of people who can attend an event is 100, not the 700-800 that we were expecting would attend Health Aotearoa 2020.

The College team has worked quickly to communicate the cancellation information and the College is committed to providing full refunds to delegates, exhibitors, and sponsors and will be processing these as soon as possible.

CEO Lynne Hayman said, “Like me, you will be disappointed not to have the conference run as planned but we need to consider the situation and be mindful of our members who are increasingly fatigued. This decision was the right one.”