KEY POINTS:
Hospitals are concentrating on reducing demand where possible as strikes by laboratory workers and radiographers continue, district health boards say.
Laboratory workers, who struck for two days earlier this month, are on strike today and Thursday.
The Medical Laboratory Workers Union has about 1200 members working for 15 of the country's DHBs, the New Zealand Blood Service, Southern Community Laboratories and Medlab South.
Radiographers are continuing industrial action which began last Monday and is scheduled to continue until May 14, with around 200 radiographers from seven of the 21 DHBs involved.
DHBs' contingency planner Anne Aitcheson said three DHBs were affected by the radiographers' action today - Lakes (Rotorua), Bay of Plenty and Canterbury.
"Most of that action is after hours, so we defer where we can," Ms Aitcheson told NZPA today.
She said DHBs were looking at their beds on an hourly basis and planning the work to be done.
"Obviously we're having a peak at the moment, there's quite a lot of trauma around the country. Medical beds around New Zealand are quite full and there's a lot of surgery so we expect the pressure on beds to continue."
Ms Aitcheson said the laboratory workers' action would affect all DHBs to some degree because the Blood Service was involved as well.
"One of the most critical things is that we do have access to union workers for essential services as we need them."
Some DHBs had non-union staff at work but others, like the Auckland DHBs, had a higher number of staff involved in industrial action, she said.
"It's really about reducing the demand where we can and managing our options.
"The hospitals are doing an extremely good job in a difficult situation," Ms Aitcheson said.
Laboratory workers had spent 13 months negotiating with the DHBs, and were frustrated at the lack of movement from talks, union spokesman Bryan Raill said yesterday.
"The lab workers feel immensely undervalued by their employers because they're not paying us what we're worth. We're not asking for the earth," he said.
DHBs have called on laboratory workers to return to negotiations.
Spokesman Gordon Davies, chief executive officer for the Canterbury DHB, said both parties had moved on base salary, but the union had several other claims on the table that came at a "significant cost".
DHBs had a fair and reasonable offer on the table, Mr Davies said, and were happy to talk to the union if it showed a willingness to move its position in a "meaningful" way.
- NZPA
