Heather du Plessis-Allan: Our doctors need better pay

Do you know what? I'm actually cross at Health NZ Te Whatu Ora for playing silly buggers with senior doctors and their pay.

Things are serious right now. It is a serious thing for senior doctors to go on strike today, they've never done this before.

And I can totally understand why- they must be at their wits end with the silly games Te Whatu Ora are playing to avoid paying doctors properly. 

Kerre Woodham: The strike wasn't a decision they made lightly

Well, with senior doctors and dentists within our public health system set to strike for a couple of hours this afternoon [5/9/23], you might be thinking this would be a very bad time indeed to have the need to whip up to A&E.

In actual fact, staffing should probably be better than it normally is on a wet weekend in winter, given how stringent the conditions are before public health staff can actually strike. There are all sorts of protections for the public around staffing levels and as I say, it may not be as bad as trying to get up there on a Friday night.

John MacDonald: Here's the real reason for the Doctor's / Dentist's strike

Do you know what the real reason is for today’s [5/9/23] big health strike? The real reason why thousands of senior doctors and dentists at hospitals around the country are walking off the job for two hours?

According to them, they’re striking because their pay hasn't kept up with inflation and so they’re going backwards; and they say if the pay doesn't improve, the hospital system will go downhill further because doctors and dentists won’t want to come here from overseas to work.