Health chiefs seek strike 'cover'

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Auckland health chiefs are responding to strikes by radiographers by lobbying the Government for a statutory ban on hospital unions striking without providing emergency cover.

The managers say patients lives were put at risk by the difficulties in obtaining emergency cover from the radiographers' union, Apex, for the strikes which began in October, and that sometimes cover was not available.

But Apex says that where there was an established need for cover, members provided it.

The union called off its strikes last month when the Auckland District Health Board caved in to the Apex call for independent arbiters to settle the pay dispute. The arbitration is expected to take place within three months.

Board members yesterday reviewed the six days of strikes. Executives said they had asked the Health Ministry for a law change requiring striking health unions to provide emergency cover.

Board members backed that by deciding to write directly to Health Minister Annette King.

Ms King gave no indication whether she supported the proposal.

"It is an issue that needs to be discussed with the unions and district health boards," her spokesman said.

The health board's clinical board chairman, Dr David Sage, said he would approach Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson to try to develop an ethical code for health strikes.

A Nurses Organisation manager, Laila Harre, said it was disappointing that the health board was "running to the Government for a law change".

"They would have a lot of work to do to convince the Government that this was the problem. In almost everyone else's assessment the problem has been their own intransigence.

"Health unions, including the MRTs [radiographers] in the recent dispute, have been prepared to work with management to offer emergency cover."

Auckland board members and executives consider Apex - an expanding union because of pay rises it has won - to be more hard-nosed and difficult to negotiate with than other health unions.

"The particular union involved has got it in for Auckland big time," said an Auckland board hospital committee member, Associate Professor Pat Alley. Apex denies this.

Board members also criticised the Waitemata health board for making a higher pay-rise deal, nearly 7 per cent, with its radiographers - a settlement which averted a strike.

"So we've got a lot to blame Waitemata for," said board chairman Wayne Brown.

His radiographers were offered staggered rises of 2 per cent plus 2 per cent against Apex's demand for 10.3 per cent.

The offer was driven by a 2 per cent Government cap on cost growth. Board members were surprised to learn that Waitemata's cap is about 4 per cent.

Mr Brown said he - not Ms King - instigated the management move to arbitration, once the clinical board advised of the risks to patients of more strikes.

"Whilst the Government may have been wobbly, it had no impact."

"She [Ms King] just said that she was hearing concerns [about the strikes' effects]." The minister's spokesman said she had "no involvement in the move to arbitration".

Mr Brown said he hoped the management had given decent bonuses to the board radiographers who worked during the strikes.

The general manager of clinical support, Fiona Ritsma, said they had been thanked in other ways.

Herald feature: Our sick hospitals