Radiographers strike 'would close nine hospitals'

A four-day strike by radiation technologists later this month would effectively close nine public hospitals and delay operations, hospital managers say.

Four hundred radiographers at nine district health boards (DHBs) gave notice today of a strike between noon May 23 and noon May 27 in support of a pay claim.
"Were the strike to happen, effectively we'd have to close nine public hospitals and a number of auxiliary hospitals from Nelson through to Auckland," Hawke's Bay District Health Board (DHB) chief executive Chris Clarke said today.

The hospitals would also have to postpone surgery and outpatient clinics, he told Radio New Zealand.

"The impact on the health service would be significant," Mr Clarke said.

The national secretary of the radiographers' union, Apex, said the strike was "a warning to the district health boards to get their act together".

Deborah Powell said Apex had been calling for a resolution to the dispute for six months. A stumbling block to resolution appeared to be the conditions the DHBs have attached to giving radiologists the $3 million they had asked for.

The DHBs say the money would be spent over two to three years, but Apex says only an annual payment of that amount would cover all pay rises.

Apex wants a minimum salary of about $40,000 and an increase for experienced staff.

"Currently the minimum varies from $30,000 to $35,000 across the DHBs," Dr Powell told NZPA yesterday.

"There are major recruitment and retention problems and that's got to be dealt with."

The DHBs most affected would be Northland, Waitemata, Auckland, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Whanganui, Mid Central (Palmerston North), Capital & Coast (Wellington) and Nelson-Marlborough, Mr Clarke said.

DHBs have contingency plans and each was assessing how the threatened strike would affect services in their areas.

"Patient safety is our main consideration," he said.

Dr Powell said radiation technologists, who perform procedures such as x-rays, scans, mammograms and ultra sound, wanted a collective agreement across the nine DHBs.

Currently they had separate arrangements with individual DHBs.

Talks were scheduled to resume at midday, with further talks tomorrow and Wednesday.

- NZPA