4 Jan 2006

Striking PNG nurses go back to work

11:25 am on 4 January 2006

Most of the nurses who'd been on strike in a campaign for better pay at Port Moresby General Hospital in Papua New Guinea have returned to work.

At its worst point, nine out of ten nurses were on strike, with doctors threatening to walk off the job too, to get the government to come to a solution quickly.

The director of medical services, Dr Simon Mete, says doctors couldn't go on strike because of patients.

Dr Mete says a court order is in place to get the remaining nurses back.

He says police have warned nurses that if they defy the order they'll go to jail.

"Those people who defied the court order, you're looking at about a hundred or so, who don't turn up for work, well they either resign or go to prison."