They want more pay and better conditions, a cause which will have a lot of sympathy from the public who need no convincing these health professionals are overworked and underpaid.
But while they might sympathise with the cause, the patients whose appointments, including surgery, were postponed and others who faced even longer delays at emergency departments will be unlikely to feel charitable about the personal impact on them.
Strikes, like wars, cause a lot of collateral damage, some of it self-inflicted in costing the strikers their day’s pay.
They are legal but they inconvenience a lot of people and when its health workers striking they they add to the already large problem of delays in diagnosis and treatment.
We need a better way of solving industrial disputes than strikes, especially for the health workforce when even one day without their very necessary work causes so much pain both figuratively and, for at least some patients, literally.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
Strikes, like wars, cause a lot of collateral damage, some of it self-inflicted in costing the strikers their day’s pay.
They are legal but they inconvenience a lot of people and when its health workers striking they they add to the already large problem of delays in diagnosis and treatment.
We need a better way of solving industrial disputes than strikes, especially for the health workforce when even one day without their very necessary work causes so much pain both figuratively and, for at least some patients, literally.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
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