Tensions rise as senior doctors strike: ‘None of us want to do this’

Thursday, 1 May 2025

In 2023 senior doctors picketed outside Southland Hospital as part of nationwide strikes for better working conditions. Today about 5000 senior doctors will be walking off the job.

Senior doctors are today stepping off the job and into the eye of a tense political stalemate.

While the unionised health professionals are striking for better conditions and pay, the Government has found itself between a rock and a hard place, both sides desperate to get back around the negotiation table but seemingly unwilling to budge.

While money is tight for a Government that is also negotiating the nurses’ agreement, the optics of a constricting workforce and its impact on patient care is being forced into the spotlight.

ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton says the latest offer will “drive existing doctors away rather than help retain them”.

The strike of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists members will see an estimated 5000 senior doctors walking off the job for 24 hours on Thursday.

Health Minister Simeon Brown told The Post called it a “credible offer that has been put on the table by Health NZ”.

Junior doctors took strike action last year. (File photo)

ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton said the latest offer would “drive existing doctors away rather than help retain them”, while Te Whatu Ora deputy chief executive Cath Cronin said the strike would postpone more than 4000 procedures, “causing further harm to patients waiting a long time for treatment”.

Health Minister Simeon Brown called it a “credible offer that has been put on the table by Health NZ”, and accused the union of “using patients as bargaining chips, rather than getting back around the negotiating table”.

“I've been incredibly clear that the this union-led strike, which is going to cancel the care and delay the care of thousands of patients is unacceptable.

“The right place for these issues to be dealt with is around the negotiating table, rather than through strike action.”

Union member Dr Arun George, who is a Wellington radiologist, said senior doctors had been left with no option “but to strike in order to get their voice heard and to bring the attention of the New Zealand public to an issue that will affect each and every one of us in future”.

George said the workforce was depleting. “People are leaving [the public health system], we're not replacing the people who are leaving, we are unable to attract even our own local trainees to the public sector.”

He was also concerned that the current situation would lead to an even smaller workforce and, in turn, affect patient care.

ASMS president Katie Ben said understaffing had long been an issue, with the offers not adequate to attract or keep doctors in New Zealand “to provide patients with a safe level of care”.

“We cannot carry on patching up the health service by paying with our own mental and physical health.

“None of us want to do this … We feel we've been put into a situation where we have no choice. We would like to get back around the table to chat with them and really find a solution through this.”

Ben said conversations among senior doctors about moving to Australia or to the private sector was common, with members increasingly citing workplace conditions and salary as the main drivers for going overseas.

Ben reassured patients that they would receive care on Thursday.

“If you need to turn up at hospital with an emergency, please turn up.”