Next week Junior Doctors, across New Zealand will strike for five days from 8am Monday 29 April to 8am Saturday 4 May.
Hauora Tairāwhiti would like to further reassure the public that measures are in place to ensure your safety should you require urgent care at the hospital during the strike.
Dr Anne Kolbe, Chief Medical Officer, said “Resident Medical Officers (Junior Doctors) are a vital part of the healthcare team at Hauora Tairāwhiti and this strike will severely affect our ability to carry out our services.”
“We will be deferring appointments for surgery, treatments and outpatient clinics and giving priority to emergency, intensive care and maternity.”
“We apologise to the public for these disruptions, and would like to assure our community that we are working very hard to ensure safe care is provided.”
“All patients whose appointments are affected by the strike will be notified by telephone. If you haven’t been contacted, you can assume your appointment is proceeding.”
“On strike days, our Senior Medical Officers will undertake their usual duties as well as covering the work that our Junior Doctors would normally do.”
“Please help us keep our Emergency Department for emergencies only.”
“You can call 0800 611 116 for advice and information from a trusted Registered Nurse. Always call 111 in an emergency.”
“Patient safety and wellbeing remains our highest priority and focus.”
Q & A’s about the strike:
Q. How are you preparing for the strike?
Hauora Tairāwhiti has robust contingency management processes to ensure essential services remain available during strike action. The contingency planning group is meeting daily and following a 14-day national contingency plan. With the reduced availability of up to 25 junior doctors, senior doctors will be doing the work of Resident Doctors.
Q. What is a Resident Medical Officer (RMO)?
An RMO is also known as a junior doctor, who is still in training. RMOs are important members of staff and perform a wide range of exams and procedures to ensure high quality patient care.
Q. Why are they going on strike?
The Resident Doctors’ collective agreement ended over a year ago, and the RDA union has been negotiating with national District Health Boards since then. An agreement on a variety of employment conditions has not been reached and therefore industrial action has been taken by the RDA.
Q. How many staff are affected?
Most hospital-based staff will be affected. Hauora Tairāwhiti employs 25 Resident Medical Officers, 19 of those are House Officers and 6 are Registrars. With the reduced availability of up to 25 junior doctors, senior doctors will be doing the work of Junior Doctors, assisted by other clinical colleagues. To enable them to do this most non-urgent services will be rescheduled. Other staff will be working on rescheduling appointments and actively planning to discharge inpatients.
Q. Will it be safe to come to hospital?
Yes. Meticulous planning has taken place to ensure specialist staff are available throughout the five day strike. Most non-urgent surgery and appointments will be rebooked to ensure there is adequate cover by Consultants.
Q. I have a surgery/hospital appointment booked around then?
All patients whose appointments are affected by the strike will be notified by telephone. If you haven’t been contacted, you can assume your appointment is proceeding. You can phone 0800 800 620 for information.
Q. Is all surgery being cancelled?
All non-urgent appointments and surgery has been cancelled. This is to help keep the hospital at safe occupancy levels during the strike.