Nurse strike to hit 8000 procedures
Up to 8000 planned procedures across New Zealand health boards could be affected when nurses go on strike tomorrow.
A ‘‘majority’’ of the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation’s (NZNO) members voted to reject the latest District Health Boards’ (DHB) pay offer, confirming that
24 hours of industrial action will begin at 7am.
The NZNO, which represents more than 30,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants employed by DHBs, had recommended its members take the latest collective agreement offer.
The Government and DHBs yesterday still hoped to prevent the action.
Planning for this week’s strike has included DHBs cancelling all non-urgent and elective procedures.
In Canterbury, it is understood about 800 outpatient appointments and 150 elective surgeries will need to be postponed.
The Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) is already constrained by a lack of theatre space, so rescheduling procedures could be difficult.
One option to catch up is to outsource procedures to private hospitals at significant cost.
On the West Coast, hospital and health centres will remain open and continue to provide essential and urgent services including emergency care and acute surgery and maternity care. Wards would remain open with reduced capacity.
The impact of the strike would be ‘‘significant’’, DHBs spokeswoman Helen Mason warned.
The financial impact was expected to run into the millions of dollars, but it could be weeks before the cost was released.
DHBs chief medical officer John Tait said it was estimated
6000 to 8000 procedures would be
‘‘People should be accessing normal medical care through GPs . . . and so on.’’ DHBs spokeswoman Helen Mason
affected. Health boards were contacting affected people about their procedures.
Arrangements had been made to ensure anyone needing essential medical care would get the help they needed, Tait said.
Mason said senior clinicians were preparing contingency plans to ensure the safety of staff and patients.
‘‘People should be accessing normal medical care through GPs, their pharmacist and so on,’’ Mason said.
‘‘Anyone who has an urgent need to not hesitate to dial 111 to not hesitate to call an ambulance or attend ED.’’
How it happened
The strike action comes after DHBs almost doubled their offer at the end of May. Nurses had until 5pm on Monday to vote on the latest revised collective agreement.
Musa would not be drawn on whether the DHBs would seek a court injunction to stave off the strike.
The DHBs said they had asked the Employment Relations Authority to help find a way forward.
Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters said they still hoped to avert the strike, but the offer would not be improved.
What was offered
The rejected offer included $38 million in funding for DHBs to hire about 500 new nurses to address staffing issues. It also featured a December 2019 date for any pay equity payments to come into effect.
The offer included a lump sum of up to $2000, three per cent pay rises for all members plus additional pay steps and further increases for all groups.
Registered nurses and midwives on the top pay bracket would have got a 15.9 per cent increase by the time the new top step of $77, 386 came into effect in August 2020.