Nurses are fed up over chronic short-staffing, despite graduates seeking jobs.  

More than 30 thousand nurses and heath professionals will be off the job from 9am, withdrawing labour from all Health New Zealand services for the next 24 hours.  

Strikes are taking place in over 30 locations across the country, with thousands of procedures and appointments postponed. 

Nurses Organisation Chief Executive Paul Goulter told Mike Hosking Health NZ doesn't realise the risks its staff and patients are under. 

He says you need nurses for a safe health system, and we don't have that, so it's a political choice.  

Goulter says their pay gap needs to be improved by a matter of a few percent, and at the moment they don’t even come close to the cost of living. 

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