KEY POINTS:
Increasing numbers of cancer patients face dangerous delays for radiation therapy because of escalating strike action combined with growing waiting times.
Therapists are about to strike for between one and four days, starting with Auckland and Wellington Hospitals next week.
Yesterday a leading specialist said the strikes would add to treatment delays, which have also been caused by higher numbers of patients, driven by expanding cancer screening and, according to union leaders, staff shortages.
Dr Chris Wynne, clinical director of radiation oncology at Christchurch Hospital, said yesterday that about half of "priority C" patients nationally had to wait longer than four weeks to start radiotherapy.
They include men with prostate cancer and post-surgery breast cancer patients having curative treatment, plus those having radiotherapy to relieve pain and other symptoms from incurable tumours.
The Ministry of Health says four weeks is the maximum acceptable waiting time for radiotherapy. Longer delays are considered likely to reduce the chances of a cure.
"Since September-October there have been a number of full-day strikes, overtime bans, lunchtime strikes, after-hours strikes. Everywhere around the country has seen an increase in their waiting times," said Dr Wynne, who has taken up the "stupid" habit of smoking cigarettes to draw attention to the plight of patients affected by the "stupid" dispute between the therapists' union and district health boards.
Joanna Easingwood, manager of oncology, haematology and palliative care at Auckland City Hospital, said industrial action was having an impact on treatment.
The average wait for a priority C patient in Auckland was 7.33 weeks. To date, 31 out of 131 patients had waited longer than four weeks.
She said the wait was getting worse but had been mitigated by getting patients treated in Australia.
Thirty-six breast cancer patients have taken the hospital's offer of overseas treatment, and the hospital has arranged to send 10 breast and prostate cancer patients every week.
Several other health boards are considering similar action because of excessive waiting times, which have reportedly reached 18 weeks for some at Palmerston North Hospital.
Ministry figures still show the proportion of priority C patients waiting more than four weeks to start radiotherapy static at about 35 per cent since September - information contradicted by the Auckland and Christchurch figures.
The union's secretary, Deborah Powell, said members were striking for a 5 per cent pay rise, their first since 2002. They were incensed by the district health boards' zero offer and a subsequent one of 1.4 per cent.
She said this had contributed to therapists going overseas to work.
But the health boards said the 2002 deal delivered forward pay rises of 4.4 to 6.6 per cent a year. The boards had offered a 1.4 per cent rise from last October and 2.5 per cent from next July to a workforce whose incomes averaged just over $63,000 and ranged from $42,377 to about $92,000.
Strike plans
Auckland: January 11 and 15.
Canterbury: January 9-12 .
Wellington: January 11 and 15.
MidCentral (Palmerston North): January 15-19.
- Additional reporting Errol Kiong
