Ultrasound operators have settled a deal for a 10 percent pay rise and have dropped all planned strikes.
The union for sonographers, Apex, had issued a series of strike notices to the 14 district health boards south of the Auckland region starting this week to try to win the 15-month pay battle.
However, it has cut a deal with the DHBs for pay parity with Auckland sonographers, which will lift wages by 10 to 12 percent.
Apex's national secretary, Deborah Powell, said the agreement was a good platform for fixing retention problems.
"We certainly got pay parity for sonographers throughout New Zealand and we're now embarking on a process with the district health boards to develop our workforce recovery plan to try and improve the numbers of sonographers that we're training and retaining within the DHBs."
Dr Powell said the pay parity would be permanent, but this agreement is interim because it was not yet part of the workers' collective agreement.
