A second strike by 9,000 nurses is to take place today as their trade union insists it is "ready and willing" for eleventh-hour discussions with Department of Heath chiefs.
The walkouts by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members will be between 8am and 8pm, with certain specialties exempted including cancer treatment, intensive care units and Muckmore Abbey Hospital patients.
A further RCN strike is planned for this Friday along with Unison colleagues, when thousands more nurses and healthcare staff will take to the picket lines.
The dispute centres on staffing levels and pay parity with colleagues in Britain.
The first RCN strike in the union's 104-year history took place last month.
A joint statement was issued yesterday by the chief executives of the north's five health trusts warning that this week's walkouts "could mean that patient safety will be compromised as never before".
"It is difficult to see how further strike action this week can advance their cause," they said.
"With two strike days planned in the space of 72 hours this week, there are serious concerns that the system could be pushed beyond the tipping point."
But in an advertisement published yesterday in three daily newspapers, RCN director Pat Cullen insisted the health service is already in crisis and strike action is a "last resort" after "exhausting every other avenue to raise concerns".
She accused the department being "disingenuous" towards nurses after they released a statement on Monday evening saying they welcomed "dialogue".
The department's response was in relation to correspondence sent by Ms Cullen in which she set out measures required to ensure "safe" staffing across the health service, which has currently has 2,800 empty nursing posts.
The nursing chief said she had written a series of letters to the department since taking up post in May raising issues that needed to be urgently tackled, including inadequate workforce planning, student nursing places and reliance on agency staff.
"I warned in those letters that if you don't get these issues addressed we're going to find ourselves in the situation we're in now," she said.
"We had a meeting with Mr (Richard) Pengelly in December and we made it very clear the issues required a formal process - which they are responsible for establishing. We said our door is always open, we will be there night or day.
"They sent us back a letter at 5.30pm on Monday saying they were happy to meet us. I am not the department's director of workforce planning and it is for them to set up a formal process and meeting, it is disingenuous and disrespectful to nurses to say it's for us. We're not the decision makers.
"If they set up a meeting at 10pm tonight I have my people and myself poised ready and willing."
The department confirmed it had written to RCN on Monday, adding: "It is a matter of public record that the department continues to offer talks with unions to find a way forward."
