There are no signs that a dispute between district health boards and junior doctors over rosters will be over any time soon.
Photo: RNZ / Andrew Collins
About 3000 junior doctors will walk off the job in hospitals throughout the country tomorrow for 73 hours amid a deepening row over rosters.
Talks held since a 48-hour strike in October folded on Friday, with each side blaming the other for failing to agree on a solution.
The lead chief executive for the 18 DHBs affected by the strike, Julie Patterson, said it was not clear how the differences would be settled.
"From the DHB perspective we have met all the claims, put a lot of extra money on the table. These doctors have the best working conditions for junior doctors in the world. We just do not know what else we can do. So it does feel like it's got a way to go yet," she said.
The Resident Doctors Association said the boards did not make an offer that would warrant it calling off the second, longer strike.
But Julie Patterson said the union was still being unreasonable.
"We've agreed to all of the health and safety claims that the union put in front of us but what they're continuing to demand is just not reasonable in terms of us running the services 24 hours a day, seven days a week for all of our communities up and down the country."
Julie Patterson said doctors wanted to retain sign-off over any roster changes made at individual DHBs, and to dictate which days off they had after a long shift.
Hundreds of non-urgent outpatient appointments and surgical operations have been postponed so hospitals can focus on urgent cases.