KEY POINTS:
Junior doctors pay dispute with the District Health Boards (DHBs) has turned 'confrontational' and patients are suffering, says the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA).
They say both parties desperately need Government help with their stalled negotiations.
But health minister David Cunliffe has so far refused to get involved in the dispute.
The NZMA today expressed deep concern over the continuing industrial impasse between the DHBs and the Resident Doctors Association (RDA), which has led to a second round of 48-hour strikes, to begin on Wednesday.
NZMA chairman Peter Foley said it was alarmed the situation was continuing without any sign of a resolution.
"This is causing major problems for our patients who are in many cases not getting care when they need it, but also for doctors and other health practitioners throughout the health system as they struggle to cope with the effects of the strike," Mr Foley said.
He said it was "starkly clear" the environment between DHBs and doctors was highly confrontational and not producing a solution.
"We desperately need a change of approach," Dr Foley said.
He called on the Government to intervene.
" Firstly it must exercise leadership and use its influence to assist both parties in resolving the current dispute, and in doing so it must recognise the immediate issues facing the junior doctor workforce.
"Then it must work with the medical profession in a more strategic way to find policy-based solutions to the major workforce issues facing junior doctors and indeed the whole of the profession. It is time for leadership and action," Dr Foley said.
About 2400 doctors are already expected to walk off the job for 48 hours from 7am Wednesday morning.
Resident Doctors Association (RDA) national secretary Deborah Powell told reporters today, support for the industrial action had increased since last month's two-day strike, with an extra 400 doctors joining the union.
The doctors have been fighting for a 30 per cent pay rise over a three-year period, and the DHBs have put a counter-offer of 4.25 per cent increase in July 2007 and July 2008.
They also offered to set up an independent commission that would look at junior doctors' issues as they arose.
The DHBs have said the offer for the junior doctors was similar to the offer given to the Senior Medical Officers (SMOs).
But Dr Powell disputed this and said there were some key differences between the two offers and if it was indeed the same, then the two groups could easily have come to an agreement and Wednesday and Thursday's strike action could be avoided.
"But given that it wasn't, we ran into a bit of a problem.
"We just need the district health boards to make an offer which genuinely is consistent with that SMO deal."
She also said the commission offer was essentially a committee set up to make recommendations to the Ministry of Health.
" Anything that the committee came up with would in any event only form a recommendation ... and would simply come back to the parties, ie the DHBs and RDA, and given that our contract was already settled, could be ignored because there's no contract to negotiate any more."
Dr Powell said the settlement looked like it would be something between 4.25 and 10 per cent pay increase a year and the DHBs needed to move from their bottom offer.
She said the DHBs refused to move "and at that point literally left the room".
No talks had been scheduled before the pending strike.
Dr Powell said if the dispute continues further strikes were an option.
"I would have to say that if we don't get this settled we're probably going to be in a very serious situation as the year rolls around."
She said the dispute needed to be settled as hospitals were losing future as well as current doctors and the people who would suffer were those in need of a good health service.
- NZPA
