More Dunedin and Wakari hospital services will be back in action today after the junior doctors' strike ends at 7am, but elective surgery could be affected by backlogs.
On the second day of the strike yesterday, Dunedin Hospital's emergency department was ‘‘reasonably busy'', but by early evening 47 beds were available.
Junior doctors are pursuing a 30% pay rise over the next three years.
Otago District Health Board operations manager Megan Boivin said 38 patients were discharged during the day.
By early evening, 28 patients were in the emergency department - making it busier than usual - but only five were likely to require beds, she said.
Staff were concentrating on caring for patients and lessening any disruption.
‘‘Everyone is just getting on with doing their job, working as a team,'' Ms Boivin said.
New Zealand Nurses Organisation Otago organiser Lorraine Lobb had received little feedback on how members were coping, but she said nurses had been advised not to do work outside their scope of practice.
Dunedin Resident Doctors Association representative Dr Logan Mitchell said while he did not know how many doctors were on strike, there had been good support from members for the action, especially among first-year house surgeons.
Urgent Doctors and Accident Centre practice manager Belinda Watkins said the centre on Tuesday had ‘‘one of the quietest days we have had for a long time'', but it was back to normal by yesterday afternoon.
Extra doctors had been rostered on during the strikes, but the two days had been ‘‘a bit of an anticlimax''.
The message from district health boards that people should stay away from emergency departments unless it was urgent had probably affected them, she said. Several general practices reported being no busier than usual.
Planning for a possible strike on May 7 and 8 is now starting, but Dr Mitchell hopes negotiation during the next fortnight will avert the strike.
- A senior doctors' union has rubbished claims some hospitals are nearing closing point because of a shortage of doctors, NZPA reported.
Junior doctors' representative Deborah Powell this week singled out a handful of hospitals - Wanganui and Southland in particular - as being at crisis point because of recruitment problems and a lack of doctors.
However, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell, who represents senior doctors, criticised the junior doctors' strike action. He added that any suggestion of hospital closures was ‘‘totally untrue''.
It was ‘‘regrettable'' junior doctors planned to strike again from May 7 - the day before senior doctors planned to hold a meeting about finalising their own pay terms with DHBs, Mr Powell said.
