A blood service strike will from tomorrow cause even urgent cancer and cardiac elective surgeries to be postponed - and the few planned cases that do proceed will in some cases be warned by surgeons that there’s no guarantee of a blood transfusion if something goes wrong. However, the Public Service Association (PSA) says blood products will definitely be provided when needed, and its underpaid members have worked extremely hard to ensure the strike proceeds safely. More than 290 lab workers, scientists, technicians and administrators at the NZ Blood Service will strike for four hours on Friday, and for 24 hours on June 4, after seven months of stalled negotiations to be paid the same as their counterparts in Health NZ-Te Whatu Ora.
In addition, workers at the service won’t do work outside of paid hours from May 29 to June 6, and won’t do duties associated with processing AHF plasma over the same period. Emergency and life-preserving services will be maintained, but all but a few elective surgeries will be cancelled, across both public and private hospitals. The Herald has obtained advice from Southern Cross Healthcare - the country’s biggest private hospital provider - to staff, outlining the strike’s impact.
No blood products will be supplied to its hospitals from May 30 to the morning of June 5, and even the highest priority cancer and cardiac elective surgeries will be postponed. Medical specialists have been told to take “a significantly more conservative app.
