Thousands of New York City nurses strike at two hospitals

More than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospitals went on strike Monday, saying staffing levels at private sector facilities are inadequate and that pay should be higher.

Nurses say vacancies and understaffing put patients at risk, especially as the city confronts the so-called tripledemic of Covid-19, flu and RSV infections. What constitutes sufficient staffing has been at the heart of disputes between nurses and hospitals for years. Then the pandemic spiked turnover, forcing hospitals to fill gaps with expensive travel nurses and pushing their operating margins negative. Hospitals say the resulting crisis leaves them less room to manoeuvre, an argument the nurses dispute.

“Why wouldn’t you take care of the people who take care of the patients,” said Margaret Halliday, a neurology nurse who’s been in the field for 29 years, seven of them at Mount Sinai. “If you paid nurses better, and you had a better ratio, nurses would stay.” 

Hundreds lined Madison Avenue by the entrance to Mount Sinai Medical Centre’s main facility Monday, waving signs like “If nurses are outside, something is wrong inside” as passing cars honked support and a band accompanied strikers chanting “Staff staffing saves lives” and “Mount Sinai, shame on you.” 

The campus is only a block away from Central Park, where field tents to treat Covid-19 patients went up during the grim early days of the outbreak when New York had the terrible distinction of being the locus of the pandemic.

Nurses at locations of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx Montefiore also struck on Monday. 

“Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compounded wage increase — the same offer agreed to at the wealthiest of our peer institutions — and a commitment to create over 170 new nursing positions, and despite a call from Governor Hochul for arbitration, The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) leadership has decided to walk away from their patients,” the hospital said in a statement. 

Montefiore said it was rescheduling all elective procedures and walk-in appointments. 

Mount Sinai said the nurses’ group halted negotiations after 1am on Monday after the association rejected a 19.1% wage increase agreed to by eight other hospitals, including two other Mount Sinai health campuses.

Mount Sinai earlier suspended elective procedures and transferred 13 infants from its neonatal intensive care units in preparation for the strike, according to spokesperson Lucia Lee.

“We’re prepared to minimise disruption, and we encourage Mount Sinai nurses to continue providing the world-class care they’re known for, in spite of NYSNA’s strike,” Lee said in an emailed statement on Monday, referring to the New York State Nurses Association.

The nurses’ association urged patients in need to continue to seek care at hospitals and emphasised it would not constitute crossing a strike line. 

City, State Response

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the city and state are prepared to handle a strike.

Adams said the city is activating its situation room to monitor hospital operations citywide, the fire department has contingency plans to reroute ambulances and the city’s public hospitals have emergency strategies to handle a surge in patients. 

“While New York City is prepared for a potential strike, we are hopeful that all parties keep working to reach a voluntary agreement,” Adams said in a statement on Sunday.

Hochul said the New York State department of health will continue to enforce staffing requirements under the law and urged Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai to continue arbitration.

Ian Urbina, who’s worked as an emergency-room nurse at Mount Sinai and is now in a neurology ICU unit, said he once worked a shift where three nurses served 50 patients, forcing him to triage whom to give time-sensitive medications to first. 

Nurses at eight private sector hospitals gave notice of a planned strike on Dec. 30, the day before contracts there and at four other institutions expired. NewYork-Presbyterian reached an agreement with 4,000 members December 31 that it approved over the weekend, and in the past week the union arrived at tentative contracts with Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island, Flushing Hospital Center in Queens, BronxCare Health System and Brooklyn Hospital Center. Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West campuses reached a tentative agreement with the union on Sunday.

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