UPDATE: THE body representing Victorian hospitals has applied to the industrial umpire to order nurses not to take stop-work action.

Health Minister David Davis today rejected the Australian Nursing Federation demand that the government agree to have Fair Work Australia resolve a bitter pay and conditions dispute.

Nurses from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Dandenong Hospital and Western Hospital in Footscray are planning to walk off the job for up to four hours tomorrow.

Mr Davis said the Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association needed until early next week to respond to the ANF proposal to have a Fair Work Australia senior deputy president rule on the dispute.

He said the state could not afford the ANF claim, which would cost health services an extra $1.7 billion a year, including $470 million annually on wages alone.

"The ANF is clearly using patients as pawns in its industrial activities," Mr Davis told reporters.

ANF Victorian secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said the unprotected industrial action would definitely proceed if the government did not agree by 5pm today to have the industrial umpire settle the dispute.

Mr Davis said if the nurses defy a Fair Work Australia order to stop unprotected industrial action it risked further legal action in the Federal Court.

He said two patients requiring urgent surgery had their operations cancelled yesterday as a result of nurses attending a union mass meeting at Festival Hall.