Health workers are staging a four-hour strike this morning to protest against the Government over pay.
Staff left their posts at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham at 7am after the Government rejected a recommendation by an independent pay review group to award a one per cent pay rise to all NHS workers.
Instead, the Government wants to award the rise to just 40 per cent of staff.
Nurses, support staff, domestic staff, health care assistants and occupational therapists joined health union Unison's picket lines to demand a Government rethink over their pay.
Braving wind and driving rain, striking workers waved banners, placards and flags outside Hull Royal as passing motorists and bus drivers tooted their horns in support.
Technician Janet Worth, who works in sterile services at Hull Royal, said: "We haven't had a pay rise for three years and people just aren't happy about this.
"We are worth more than that. We've got dedicated staff that work hard.
"They do this to us yet the MPs are getting an 11 per cent rise. That's the most annoying thing."
Midwives at Hull Women and Children's Hospital also taking part in the strike, which will continue until 11am. It is the first time in the 130-year history of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) that members have voted to strike.
While labour wards and post natal care wards are operating as normal, antenatal care is operating as a bank holiday service.
Sharon Scruton of the RCM, standing with midwives on Anlaby Road, outside the maternity hospital, said: "We are all passionate about the care of women and babies and we would never put them at risk.
"But we feel very strongly about this. If the system continues like this, midwives will become even more disenchanted and will want to leave the profession."
Occupational therapist Debbie Parker is one of the 40 per cent who would receive the one per cent rise but walked out in support of her colleagues who will get nothing.
She said: "It is not fair my colleagues didn't get it.
"It is not just about pay. We feel the NHS is being eroded and this is the Government's way of making us want to just walk away."
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospitals, is advising patients to keep their appointments this morning unless they have already been contacted.
