Operations on, strikes called off

Public hospitals will today start re-booking thousands of cancelled operations and outpatient visits following the withdrawal of a strike threat by radiographers.

The 375 radiographers at nine district health boards from Nelson to Northland were to strike for five days starting on Monday over a pay dispute, but last night called off the intended action.

"We're absolutely delighted - hugely relieved. We have the basis of a settlement," said the boards' spokesman, Chris Clarke.

The lifting of the strike notice followed another day of talks between the health boards and the main radiographers' union, the Association of Professional and Executive Employees (Apex), but neither side would give details of the employers' offer.

"We got together a package we felt was sufficient to lift the strike notice," said Apex secretary Deborah Powell.

Further talks will be held today and possibly tomorrow to finalise the pay proposal before it is put to Apex members.

Dr Powell has previously said the union wanted a minimum starting salary of about about $40,000 for new graduates and an increase for experienced staff. Graduates now start on $30,000 to $35,000.

A separate strike, planned for next Tuesday by around 50 radiographers in the Nurses Organisation at the Counties Manukau health board, has also been called off, after that board boosted its pay offer.

The nine boards in the Apex dispute - including Auckland, Waitemata, Waikato and Capital and Coast - were in the process of cancelling more than 4000 patients booked for non-urgent surgery, outpatient consultations, x-rays or scans.

Hospital officials will now start re-booking these patients.

Waitemata chief executive Dwayne Crombie said before the announcement yesterday that if the strike was called off, "we do have in some specialties, like orthopaedics, lists of people who are happy to be rung at short notice. They can come in at a moment's notice or the next day.

"In other areas, we have to start at the top of the waiting list and see if we can get people in, including people who have been cancelled. We get the booking clerks to start ringing.

"We can't completely undo it, but we could get a reasonable number of patients through."

A senior manager for Counties Manukau, Brad Healey, said it had not cancelled any cases ahead of its threatened five-hour strike.

Nurses Organisation official Mark Lennox withheld details of the board's improved offer, to be put to a members' vote, but said it was more than the annualised 2 per cent rise within which all previous offers had been constrained.