Medical physicists have voted to take strike action after failing to reach agreement over pay after months of negotiation with health boards.
Their union, Apex, says a pay offer of 1% in the first year, and 2% in each of the two following years, would not address a pay lag of up to 50% with their Australian counterparts.
At Southern District Health Board and four other boards, medical physicists would do no overtime for five days from May 27. At MidCentral DHB, physicists would refuse to work one of the machines for five days.
Apex advocate David Munro said health boards were not facing the reality of a recruitment and retention ‘‘crisis''.
The southern board has nine medical physicists, whose work involves delivering radiation treatment to oncology patients.
‘‘If they make a mistake, all the patients treated on that [linear accelerator] can be mistreated for any length of time,'' Mr Munro said.
SDHB chief executive Carole Heatly, who is the spokeswoman for health boards about the issue, said it was disappointing as it would affect cancer patients.
Radiation oncology treatment centres had worked hard to meet new cancer wait time targets, which had involved boosting the workforce.
‘‘For example, the medical physicist workforce employed by DHBs has increased from 49 in 2007 to 69 in September last year, and over the same time vacancies have fallen.
‘‘This highlights how surprised DHBs are at the industrial action proposed by their union. They are being totally unrealistic and mediation is the proper channel to resolve this.''
New Zealand pay rates for medical physicists compared ‘‘more than favourably'' with those in the United Kingdom.
Health board would try to minimise disruption to patients, she said.
