With a number of radiographers having gone on a strike in a protest demanding pay hike, the clinicians in the Auckland hospital are concerned for the patients who were scheduled for the surgeries but met with delay.

On Monday, around 55 radiographers were on strike in Auckland and it is likely that on Tuesday they would go for a countrywide strike. As a consequence, operations scheduled have been delayed and the staff has been made to work longer.

The delay in the surgeries is a major cause of worry for most of the patients who need an urgent treatment. Around 500 operations have been cancelled. There are chances that some more would be put to delay the coming weekend. X-rays will be provided only in perilous cases.

There are a lot many people in waiting, which has caused the hospital wards and beds to be packed to full. The Auckland District Health Board is incurring costs between $800 and $900 every night for the idleness of machines and resources.

One of the patients’ mothers expressed her grief over the delay in the operations, whose daughter Rebecca is suffering from cerebral palsy and was given the appointment of yesterday for her operation, which was put to delay due to strike.

The mother, Cara Porter-Jones, said, “I was absolutely devastated, we'd been preparing ourselves for weeks, months”. She wrote a letter to the radiographers’ union to express her worry.