District Health Boards feel junior doctors are holding a loaded gun to the heads of patients.

Doctors at the country's 21 DHBs have given notice of a 48 hour strike starting on April 22. They want a 10 percent pay increase for each of the next three years. Their union says junior doctors will continue to provide life preserving services.

DHB spokesman David Meates says hospitals cannot afford the increase junior doctors want and they know it. He says the demands are way above other health sector settlements which have generally been around four percent.