Go to GP, non-urgent patients told

By MARTIN JOHNSTON, health reporter

Central Auckland hospital chiefs are pleading with non-urgent patients to avoid their emergency departments during the radiographers' strike that starts at 7am today.

Auckland, Green Lane, National Women's and Starship Hospitals say they are hobbled by the refusal of the radiographers' union to provide emergency cover during the four-day strike.

The union says the hospitals' plans indicate they have enough staff, but it will help out with any unforeseen event.

Only limited x-ray and medical scanning will be available since 80 of about 100 radiographers are on strike.

From 4am, ambulances carrying any victims of serious trauma will bypass Auckland Hospital and go directly to Middlemore Hospital in Otahuhu, the region's only other facility for these patients.

"Less seriously ill patients will be taken from Auckland if they do turn up here because we can't put a 'closed' sign up," Auckland Hospital intensive care head Dr Colin McArthur said yesterday.

"The lower-level walking wounded we are encouraging to see a GP first or a private accident and emergency, some of which have their own radiology. So even if they need hospital care they can arrive with their x-rays.

"These kind of x-rays will be a low priority. We will have the ability to do some x-rays like that, but patients will wait a long time."

Dr McArthur said the problem areas were the complete inability to do angiography - x-rays of blood vessels - and the limited availability of CT scanning.

One patient from the intensive-care unit was flown to Hawkes Bay Hospital yesterday. On Sunday, two were flown south - one to Hamilton, the other to Christchurch.

Some neurosurgery patients will be transferred to Middlemore today. Any from the Midland region will be diverted to Wellington Hospital.

The Auckland Hospital-based liver transplant unit will now stay put and not go to Christchurch.

The strike-hit hospitals have been trying to reduce patient occupancy to 75 per cent by today.

Some staff and equipment have been shifted to Middlemore.

The union - the Association of Professional and Executive Employees (Apex) - and the Auckland District Health Board continued to trade complaints yesterday.

Union secretary Dr Deborah Powell said she had seen a document proving the hospitals would have more radiographers during the strike than at weekends.

But the board's chief operating officer, Marek Stepniak, said her information was wrong. He also said the union had repeatedly chosen not to meet senior board doctors who had been available to explain strike contingency measures.

Dr Powell said the union had offered to put the dispute before independent arbitrators, whose determination would be binding. The board's refusal showed it feared its position was unjustified.

Mr Stepniak said arbitration was rejected because the two parties, rather than a third group, must be responsible for the outcome.

Dr Powell said the union's 10.3 per cent average pay claim would cost the board 6 per cent on base salaries. The board had rejected a lower claim - the same as one accepted last week by the Waitemata District Health Board - which would have cost it 3 per cent.

The board has offered 2 per cent.

The executive director of the union that represents senior doctors, Ian Powell, said the board could afford to pay what Apex was seeking because radiographers were a relatively small group.

Their situation was special since they were seeking recognition of the significant increase in the skills required for their job, so there was little chance of causing a flow-on.

Further reading
Feature: Our sick hospitals