New York nurses’ strike interrupts patient care on Day 3; That’s why and latest updates

The nurses’ strike that disrupted patient care at two of New York’s largest hospitals entered its third day on Wednesday, and a union spokesman said progress was being made at one facility on a possible settlement as a spokesman for the other expressed hope for a deal. may come soon.

As many as 7,100 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan’s east side quit their jobs on Monday, demanding higher pay and more staff after contract negotiations stalled over the weekend. Both institutions have been forced to postpone or cancel elective surgeries, divert ambulances and appoint an administration with nursing experience to help fill gaps in care due to so many critical frontline personnel joining the demonstrations.

Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the latest in a group of hospitals with nursing contracts that expired at the same time.

The union, the New York State Nurses Association, initially warned it would go on strike at all of them, but other hospitals came to terms as the strike deadline approached. These deals include increases of 7%, 6% and 5% respectively over the next three years.

More than 70% of nurses at other Mount Sinai hospitals, including Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, voted to accept the agreement reached last weekend. A spokeswoman, Lucia Li, said on Wednesday that she hopes to encourage staff at the main hospital to reach a solution. soon.

“More than 70% of nurses at Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West voted to ratify an employment contract that puts nurses and patients first,” she said. “The overwhelming support for this contract gives us hope that a decision at Mount Sinai Hospital is at hand and the union will negotiate in good faith to end this strike.”

Nurses at Mount Sinai’s main center claimed that their counterparts at Morningside and Mount Sinai West had better pay differentials and better conditions to get started.

Meanwhile, progress has been made in resolving disputes in Montefiore, Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, a union representative and a nurse in the Bronx hospital system, said Tuesday.

On the picket line outside, nurses said they had to go on strike because they had to care for too many patients due to a chronic shortage of staff.

Reported by News 4 correspondent Andrew Siff.

“We are tired now – depressed. The nurses are burnt out,” said Saffi Sesay, an emergency room nurse at the hospital. “It only gets worse.

The New York State Nurses Association said ahead of the strike – and after it began – that no one wanted to leave, but said that private, non-profit hospitals were forced to take action. The union says that three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages remain a chronic problem and salaries are not high enough to compensate.

The striking nurses stressed that staffing is a bigger problem than wages. New York nurses were hailed as heroes in the spring of 2020, when the city was the epicenter of COVID-19 deaths. Now they say they are being burned out by a staffing shortage that has been a problem for years.

“Remember, even before the pandemic, we were already understaffed,” said Mount Sinai nurse Nagi Pamfil. She said the nurses in her department now have to take care of twice as many patients as they can safely handle.

“That’s impossible,” she said.

Montefiore said he agreed to add 170 more nurses. Mount Sinai said the union’s focus on nurse-to-patient ratio “ignores the progress we’ve made in attracting and hiring new nurses despite the global health worker shortage that’s affecting hospitals across the country.”

One relative of Montefiore’s patient said that the talent pool on Tuesday seemed somewhat underpowered.

“There didn’t seem to be enough people,” said Shivi Tahal, whose daughter waited longer than usual to meet her. He said that the waiting room had become more crowded.

Tahal’s wife works as a nurse at another hospital, but is not on strike. He hoped the dispute would “work out for the best for both parties – patients and nurses.”

Barbara Roman said her 10-year-old daughter was admitted to the hospital on Monday afternoon with breathing problems. She said that there seemed to be enough people there to take care of her child.

“If there is a little less staff on the floor, it doesn’t matter as long as she gets the care she needs,” Roman said, adding that it was her daughter who did it.

More than 7,000 nurses left after talks failed early Monday morning. Melissa Russo reports.

Associated Press writer Bobby Kaina Kalvan Withcontribution to this report.