A war of words is escalating between the Health Minister and senior doctors' union as its members prepare for unprecedented industrial action.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has claimed the doctor's union is putting politics before patients but that has been met with a furious response from a frontline doctor calling the remark reprehensible. Labour says the government needs to stop hurling mud and focus on resolving the dispute.
The union wants a 12 percent pay bump but has been offered a much smaller increase of between 1 and 1.5 percent. Deputy political editor Craig McCulloch reports.
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