KEY POINTS:
There's a simple answer to the ongoing wages feud at our hospitals.
Yesterday, about 800 service workers from 18 hospitals throughout the country dropped their mops, left the kitchens and abandoned bedsides to instead picket for hours; chanting, singing and ominously, voting on further industrial action.
They are essential cogs in any hospital wheel.
A hospital cannot function without them.
But the strike is understandable. Some of the country's lowest paid workers, they haven't had their $3 per hour wage increase, to be backpaid from July 1 2007, despite all parties agreeing to the new rate last year.
Spotless Services, the workers' employer, says they haven't received the necessary funding boost to pay for the increase from the health boards. And they're right, they haven't.
But the health boards can't pay Spotless until Spotless sign the contract - and they haven't.
All the while, workers are suffering.
These workers' starting rate had, until the new contracts, been just $11.25 per hour.
Striking, and the income hit that comes with it, is not a decision they take lightly.
But it seems none of the parties are able to remedy the situation.
Except one.
The Government put $10 million into the scheme to raise the wages of the country's lowest paid health workers. An admirable move, but that figure was decided before the new wage increases had been.
And the new wage increase requires closer to $11.5 million, according to both Spotless and the health boards.
Observers believe the simple answer lies with the Government. Increase the funding, let these workers receive the roughly $2500 each in backpay they are entitled to, and be done with it.
* Craig Borley is a Herald health reporter.
