By Melissa Davies
The chief medical officer at Auckland Hospital is concerned patient safety may be at risk after more than 50 radiographers walked off the job this morning.
More than 500 patients have had their surgery put off because of the three day pay strike; hundreds more can expect long delays at the hospital this weekend, and x-rays will only be done in life-threatening cases.
The radiology department is a bustling area with more than 150 patients through every day, but today the beds were empty.
A 17-month-old baby is among the patients who were meant to be in one of those beds today; her mother was so upset that her daughter’s surgery was delayed that she wrote to the radiographers union to express her concern, but the reply she got back only made her more upset.
Cara Porter-Jones constantly has to check on her baby Rebecca through the night to check she hasn't refluxed and choked in her sleep.
Rebecca suffers from cerebral palsy and was scheduled to have an operation to help her digestion yesterday, but it was called off because of today's strike.
“I was absolutely devastated, we'd been preparing ourselves for weeks, months,” Ms Porter-Jones says.
She wrote to the radiographers’ union to voice her concern but felt their response tried to pin the blame on the hospital.
The letter says the necessary staff for the surgery would have been there yesterday but the DHB says no-one would have been able to manage potential complications afterwards.
“She would have needed admission over the weekend including procedures involving a chest x-ray; so no option but to cancel and very sorry about that,” says chief medical officer of the Auckland DHB Dr Margaret Wilsher.
Pagers were left behind and operating tables were empty in the radiology department today – only life-threatening cases will be dealt with.
“There is a concern for patient safety. It is not good to make clinical decisions without all of the appropriate results and images, it’s not good to keep patients waiting and delaying chemo,” Dr Wilsher says.
Head of oncology at the hospital, Dr Richard Wilson says the strike will have an impact on the patients.
“That's dangerous, there's risk in that, there's absolutely an impact on our patients now and potentially them getting unnecessary chemotherapy or having chemotherapy delayed while we wait for a decision on a scan,” he says.
Rebecca and her parents have no choice but to wait now too and hope nothing goes wrong in the meantime.
3 News asked to speak to the spokesperson for radiographers, Deborah Powell, about the letter she sent to Cara Porter-Jones but were told she was too busy in meetings to talk today.
The union have accepted a one percent pay rise immediately and another one percent at a later date, but there's still disagreement over backdating pay and hours of work.
If it's not settled by early next week then there will be a nationwide strike across all DHB's on Tuesday.
3 News