About 150 surgeries will be cancelled while Rotorua anaesthetic technicians are on a seven-day strike.

Disagreement over rest breaks between shifts has prompted the walk-off, the technicians' union, APEX, says.

Anaesthetic technicians mostly work in operating theatres, and their tasks may include maintaining machines and helping with inserting airway devices.

But Lakes DHB technicians at Rotorua Hospital won't be doing that from Monday, April 8 to Monday, April 15, during their week-long strike.

The technicians want to return to getting a 12-hour rest break between shifts when they have worked ten hours or more, an APEX release says.

In February, Lakes DHB acting chief executive Nick Saville-Wood says they were satisfied adequate health and safety provisions existed for rest breaks between shifts.

But APEX advocate Luke Coxon says it had reached an "outrageous situation" in which about 150 surgeries would be cancelled.

"Life-preserving acute surgery" will still go ahead during the strike so the public is not at risk, the APEX release said.

However, all elective surgery which requires a general anaesthetic will have to be cancelled or postponed for the week.

The technicians have already gone on strike twice since December 2018: once for two days and then for five days in February.

The latest strike will start at 8am on Monday, April 8, and finish at 8am on Monday, April 15.

-Stuff