Three-day strike should have little impact

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 9

Three-day strike should have little impact

A three-day strike by hospital laboratory workers, which began this morning, should have little impact on Christchurch hospitals. The acting medical superintendent-in-chief of the Canterbury Hospital Board, Dr David Andrews, said yesterday that although the strike would be an inconvenience to staff, few patients would

be affected. The strike may still be averted, as the Cabinet was due yesterday to review its pay offer made early last month to the medical laboratory workers. No word of the pay offer had been heard late last evening.

At Christchurch Hospital, only two to three non-urgent operations had

been postponed, Dr Andrews said. The figure was similar at The Princess Margaret Hospital and Burwood Hospital. The strike by Medical Laboratory Technology Union members is in protest against a breakdown in pay talks with the Health Services Personnel Commission. There are 175 technologists in Christchurch, 150 working at Christchurch Hospital. The technologists will report for work for the next three days, but will refuse to handle work related to blood collected on hospital ward rounds; refuse to test outpatients except those needing tests for the maintenance of therapy; and refuse to handle blood specimens of patients known or suspected to have hepatitis B or A.I.D.S.

Any urgent cases, such as children and patients in the intensive-care unit or the neonatal unit would not be affected by the strike, said Dr Andrews.