Strike forces hospital to postpone 30 surgeries
Hawke’s Bay Hospital’s anaesthetic technicians, who are members of the Association of Professionals and Executive Employee Inc (APEX), have voted to strike for 48 hours from 7am tomorrow morning until 7am on Saturday.
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board says as a result of the strike action, 30 elective surgeries and acute surgeries that require a general anaesthetic will be postponed and only life preserving operations will proceed.
Chief executive Kevin Snee said the district health board had been bargaining in good faith and had been hopeful of a resolution, as it had met all the recent claims raised by the union.
Dr Snee said the union this week tabled additional demands.
“Unfortunately those demands go beyond those agreements reached with other unions,” he said.
“We are very disappointed as we had worked hard to meet the union’s demands and now they are asking for more. We are very mindful of how frustrating this is for patients, and can only apologise for the inconvenience to both our staff and patients.”
