Nursing strike at two large NYC hospitals enters second day

A nursing strike that has disrupted affected person care at two of New York Metropolis’s largest hospitals entered its second day Tuesday, with a union official saying progress was being made towards a potential settlement at one of many establishments.

The 2 hospitals, Montefiore Medical Heart and Mount Sinai Hospital, have been suspending nonemergency surgical procedures, diverting ambulances to different medical facilities, pulling in non permanent staffers and assigning directors with nursing backgrounds to work in wards with a view to deal with the walkout of as many as 7,100 nurses.

The New York State Nurses Affiliation, which represents the employees, mentioned yesterday it had been compelled into the drastic step due to extreme understaffing that leaves nurses caring for too many sufferers.

“Nurses do not wish to strike. Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to significantly take into account our proposals to deal with the determined disaster of unsafe staffing that harms our sufferers,” the union mentioned in an announcement late Sunday.

Progress was being made towards a settlement at Montefiore, Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, a union official and a nurse on the Bronx hospital system, mentioned Tuesday.

On the picket line outdoors, nurses mentioned they needed to strike as a result of continual understaffing leaves them caring for too many sufferers.

“We’re drained now — overwhelmed. Nurses are burned out,” mentioned Saffie Sesay, an emergency room nurse on the hospital. “It is simply getting worse.”

“Actually shifting to listen to from frontline nurses and our supporters concerning the situations which have led to this strike,” the NYSNA tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

In the meantime, as of noon, negotiations hadn’t but resumed at Mount Sinai Hospital, on Manhattan’s east facet. Hospital spokesperson Lucia Lee expressed hope that talks might quickly resume with the union, the New York State Nurses Affiliation.

“The influence is being felt,” she mentioned of the walkout.

Final holdouts

Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the final of a gaggle of hospitals with nursing contracts that expired concurrently. The union initially warned that it will strike in any respect of them on the identical time, however the different hospitals reached agreements as a Monday strike deadline approached. All embody raises of seven%, 6%, and 5%, respectively, over the subsequent three years.

Nurses on the picket strains confused that staffing ranges are a much bigger challenge than pay. New York Metropolis’s nurses have been hailed as heroes within the spring of 2020 when the town was an epicenter of deaths from COVID-19. Now, they are saying they’re being burned out by poor staffing ranges which were an issue for years.

“Bear in mind, even previous to (the) pandemic we’re already wanting employees,” mentioned Mount Sinai nurse Nagie Pamphil. She mentioned nurses in her unit at the moment are anticipated to take care of twice as many sufferers as they’ll safely deal with.

“That is unattainable,” she mentioned.

Montefiore mentioned it had agreed so as to add 170 extra nurses. Mount Sinai’s administration mentioned the union’s give attention to nurse-to-patient ratios “ignores the progress we’ve got made to draw and rent extra new nurses, regardless of a worldwide scarcity of healthcare staff that’s impacting hospitals throughout the nation.”

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