Hospitals gear up for nurses’ strike

Up to 8000 people will have procedures rescheduled before the nurses’ strike tomorrow and hospitals are ramping up preparations to make sure they can treat those who are in urgent need.

Thousands of nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants voted to walk off the job tomorrow for the first time in 30 years after rejecting the latest pay offer from the district health boards (DHBs). Talks this morning facilitated by the Employment Relations Authority are the last chance to avert the strike.

Capital & Coast chief medical officer John Tait, speaking on behalf of health boards around the country, said between 6000 and 8000 elective procedures would be deferred.

“Nurses are the cornerstone of hospital services. We cannot underestimate the impact of this strike,” he said.

“We will be, and are, working extremely hard to get people the care they need in acute emergency care. But in situations that are not lifethreatening, care will take longer.”

The DHB, as with others throughout the country, was taking steps to lessen the load for the staff left working during the strike which would run for 24 hours from 7am tomorrow.

Essential and acute services would be prioritised, outpatient appointments and elective surgeries would be rescheduled and inpatients would be assessed to see if it was clinically appropriate to discharge them.

Speaking on behalf of the DHBs, Helen Mason said they were still hopeful the strike could be avoided and had asked the Employment Relations Authority to facilitate further discussions this morning.

Mason said emergency and essential services would still be provided through the strike and people should not delay seeking medical and hospital treatment if the matter was urgent.

The Life Preserving Services agreement between DHBs and the union meant enough staff would be rostered on at each hospital to make sure patients were protected from permanent harm or a threat to life.

Starship medical director Dr Mike Shepherd said they had been working on contingency plans for Auckland City Hospital and Starship children’s hospital for a couple of weeks and had already started postponing elective

procedures and non-urgent outpatient clinics. Affected patients would be contacted in the next 24 hours if they had not been already. If people had not heard from the hospital they should attend their appointment as planned, he said.

Nurses’ Organisation industrial

services manager Cee Payne said it was unlikely any agreement would be reached if there was no more money made available to the union.

Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters was clear yesterday that the current offer was “the best we can do” and no more money was available.