Six-year-old leukaemia sufferer Paige Golledge just wants to get better.
But vital treatment she needs at Starship Children's Hospital this week has been postponed because of a health workers strike - and her mother is demanding answers.
Rachael Golledge, of Welcome Bay, says the Government should step in immediately and give district health boards more money to meet the laboratory workers' pay demands.
Paige has been fighting leukaemia since June last year and goes to Starship every three months to have the cancer fighting drug methotrexate injected into her spine.
The Maungatapu Primary School pupil was due to have the procedure today but it was postponed for a week because of the strike.
Mrs Golledge said this caused inconvenience for her and her family but also hampered her daughter's battle against cancer.
"I think the Government should step in and settle it. They should just give the people the money and let the workers get on with their jobs," Mrs Golledge said.
"These people should be paid what they are worth because the health of my child and other children has been put at risk because of the strike. Unless they sort it out, then children will die."
Mrs Golledge said she was not given a reason why the strike meant her daughter - who is in the maintenance cycle of fighting cancer - could not receive her treatment this week. "It really upset Paige. It is really important you follow the protocol."
Dr David Knight, of Starship, said intensive chemotherapy was continuing during the strike but non-urgent chemotherapy was not.
About 1200 members of the Medical Laboratory Workers Union walked off the job yesterday for the first day of a seven-day strike.
The union wants workers to receive a 5 per cent pay rise and a starting rate of $45,000 a year, up from $40,000 now but district health boards have offered an average of 5.5 per cent over two years.
No talks were held yesterday and none are believed to be planned. The strike affects 13 boards, three private laboratories and the NZ Blood Service.
It is disrupting the supply of blood products and the testing of blood and other samples from patients.
In the Western Bay, 17 lab workers at Whakatane Hospital employed by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board joined the strike though at Tauranga Hospital lab staff did not join in as they are privately contracted.
Tauranga Hospital quality manager Andrew Keenan said the strike would not have a major effect on Tauranga.
However, double the amount of blood - provided by the New Zealand Blood Service from Hamilton - usually stored at the hospital has been stockpiled. The blood is being used only for "life-preserving services" and not day-to-day procedures.
Mr Keenan said blood would be available for the maternity unit for emergency cesarean sections and that medical staff would make a "clinical decision" for each case. Lab workers needed to match blood types are on call and have to be at their place of work within 30 minutes of being notified of a threat to a patient's life, he said.
Mr Keenan believed surgeries had been postponed in the Western Bay but the details were not immediately available.
Though hospitals across the country have generally said they coped well on the first day of the strike, debate is raging over the industrial action.
The chairman of the Medical Council, Professor John Campbell, wants a ban on strikes by health workers, saying it is "totally unsatisfactory".
The lab workers' strike follows industrial action this year by radiographers, junior hospital doctors and radiologists while the Service and Food Workers Union will hold a national strike at hospitals for 90 minutes on December 13.
Bay of Plenty MP and National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall has said Health Minister Pete Hodgson should use an "honest broker to sort this mess out".
A spokesman for Mr Hodgson said the minister's focus was on supporting DHBs and ensuring they maintain life preserving services.