A senior doctors union has rubbished claims that some hospitals are nearing closing point because of a shortage of doctors.
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 doctors.
Dr Powell, the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) general secretary, said wage strikes being carried out by about 2000 junior doctors would hopefully press district health boards (DHBs) into taking action to avert such a crisis.
"Our workforce crisis is so bad our patients are not going to get a good deal now and it's just going to get worse," she said.
But Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive director Ian Powell, who represents senior doctors, was critical of junior doctors' strike actions and said the hospital closure comments were "unhelpful".
In a newsletter to union members, Mr Powell said checks with senior doctors working at the hospitals mentioned had confirmed any suggestions of closures were "totally untrue".
He also said it was regrettable the junior doctors planned to strike again for 48-hours from May 7 - a day before senior doctors were to hold a critical meeting about finalising their own pay terms with DHBs.
The union has said the strike is likely to disrupt the meeting and postponing it will be difficult as it comes at the end of a two-year negotiation process.
The RDA said it didn't know about the meeting when it set the strike dates - a claim Mr Powell said was implausible.
"If this timing is not done by design, then it is certainly done with indifference over effect," he said.
Mr Powell said the ASMS was not commenting on specific issues regarding the junior doctors' dispute with the DHBs.
He said anyone questioning whether or not the DHBs would back down over the junior doctors' claim for a 30 percent pay rise over three years needed to note Health Minister David Cunliffe's stance.
"All that can be said is that the Minister of Health has nailed his colours to the mast in Parliament and in a most animated manner that this will not happen."
