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More physicists join DHB strike

Author
Gia Garrick,
Publish Date
Tue, 2 Jun 2015, 5:07AM
Photo: Stock.xchng
Photo: Stock.xchng

More physicists join DHB strike

Author
Gia Garrick,
Publish Date
Tue, 2 Jun 2015, 5:07AM

Medical physicists from two more District Health Boards have joined a strike over failed wage negotiations.

These are the specialists that deliver radiation therapy to cancer patients.

Specialists at four DHBs went on a partial strike last week after four months of negotiations - the boards refusing to increase staff wages despite nearly all Kiwi graduates heading overseas.

Staff at six DHBs are now on an overtime ban.

APEX union advocate David Munro says it takes eight or nine years to train a medical physicist - and they're essential to delivering cancer treatments.

"[That's] a similar length of time to a senior doctor's consultant. If half of those people were leaving to go overseas, there would be the most enormous public outcry," he says.

Mr Munro says those doing the same job in Australia earn 40 to 50 percent more than they do here.

"Of the [medical physicists] who are training at the moment, 100 percent of them in a survey said they were going to go and work overseas," he says.

And the medical physicists won't stop until they get what they're after.

Mr Munro says they'll continue an overtime ban right up until July and if nothing's been negotiated there will be a full stoppage.

"And if the DHBs don't come back to us with some sort of improved offer before then, then this group of physicists are determined to keep going until we get some sort of progress," he says.

 

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