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The long-running dispute between specialists and their district health board employers comes to a head today, with a decision on strike action due.
Nineteen months after contract negotiations began between the senior doctors' union and the DHBs, the two parties remain at an impasse.
Informal talks over the past few days designed to head off the threatened action have proved fruitless.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) members last year voted overwhelmingly in support of unprecedented industrial action over the failed negotiations.
The union's executive will make the final decision today.
If it decides to go ahead, up to 2800 senior doctors could walk off the job in hospitals around the country, starting in late April.
ASMS executive director Ian Powell made it clear that emergency cases would still be cared for regardless.
Although the talks started off being about pay, as time wore on they became more about recruitment and retention with ASMS saying the medical workforce was in crisis and better pay would help stem the flow of specialists offshore. The latest pay offer made by the DHBs last week was still "inadequate", Mr Powell said.
The two parties have long argued about how much the specialists are paid, with the DHBs saying a "typical senior doctor" earns close to $200,000 a year and union saying the true figure is more like $150,000.
ASMS is seeking a base salary increase of about 10 per cent over two years, with support for further education and better conditions for callouts.
Mr Powell said there was still the opportunity to resolve the dispute, even if plans for industrial actionwent ahead.
- NZPA
