A Kiwi nurse says her colleagues are unhappy with revised DHB pay offer

Kiwi nurse Danni Wilkinson says the feeling among her colleagues is that they will not accept a revised pay offer from district health bosses, likely leading to two days of strikes in July.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said yesterday it would likely indicate on Thursday if it will accept a revised pay offer from the district health boards.

The organisation's 27,000 nurse, midwife and healthcare assistant members had earlier voted to strike on July 5 and again on July 7 if they weren't happy with the pay offered to them.

The DHBs presented their revised offer yesterday, promising 3 per cent pay rises over the next 18 months, or the equivalent of bringing a quarter of a billion dollars more to the table, health boards spokeswoman Helen Mason said.

It means a NZNO members' base salary - the salary of a registered nurse with five years of experience - would go up about $10,500 over 18 months.

"That's almost $200 extra a week by the end of 2019," Mason said.

She said the average take-home pay of a full-time experienced registered nurse would be around $93,000 a year by December 2019.

There would also be a $2000 lump sum payment in addition to base pay increases.

The offer was the third made by the DHBs.

NZNO said it would not comment until it had spoken with the DHBs and had time to present an analysis to members.

However, Wilkinson thought there was already discontent among nurses with the offer, saying some of the DHBs' comments were misleading.

For instance, the $93,000 salary could only be earned by an experienced nurse, working a lot of overtime, weekend and night shifts, she said.

"It is not a standard, which every nurse is going to get, it is at the extreme end of the scale," she said.

She said nurse salaries were already lagging behind those of other professions - with New Zealand's median salary going up 31 per cent in the past decade, compared to nurse salaries rising only 19 per cent.

This was compounded by skyrocketing house sale and rental prices across the country.

It was leading many to move to Australia, where the lowest-paid nurse earned 17 per cent more than the lowest-paid local nurse, Wilkinson said.

She said nurses deserved the cash because they were "not just pillow fluffers".

As highly trained staff, shouldering a lot of responsibility, they essentially ran hospitals and made "life-altering decisions multiple times a day", she said.

This included being held accountable if they fail to pick up on doctor's mistakes when prescribing medications.

Wilkinson said there needed to be more nurses to help minimise the risks of mistakes and allow staff to take their allocated breaks during work hours.

"It is hard work, it is emotionally and physically draining," she said.

"We are making sure we look after everybody else, we don't get a chance to look after ourselves.

"So we need more nurses and we need more money."