Copenhagen - An eight-week long strike by Danish nurses and other health workers ends this weekend after a wage agreement was announced late Friday.

The Health Confederation that organizes nurses, midwives and laboratory personnel accepted a 13.3-per-cent pay rise for the coming three-year period, despite earlier demanding a 15-per-cent hike.

The municipal and local government association (KL) that organizes employers welcomed the settlement that means work will resume as normal as of midnight Saturday.

"Three hundred and fifty thousand patients have suffered during this, so I am very happy we have agreed," KL head Bent Hansen told reporters.

Some 372,000 planned operations and other procedures were cancelled or postponed over the labour action and it was likely to take a long time to trim the backlog.

Emergency services were exempted from the strike. (dpa)