By JENNIFER PELTZ
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of nurses went on strike Monday at two of New York City’s main hospitals after contract negotiations stalled over staffing and salaries practically three years into the coronavirus pandemic.
The privately owned hospitals had been suspending nonemergency surgical procedures, diverting ambulances to different medical facilities, pulling in momentary staffers, and assigning directors with nursing backgrounds to work in wards with a view to deal with the walkout.
As many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center within the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan had been off the job. Hundreds picketed, some singing the refrain from Twisted Sister’s 1984 hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” exterior Mount Sinai. It was considered one of many New York hospitals deluged with COVID-19 sufferers because the virus made the town an epicenter of deaths in spring 2020.
“We were heroes only two years ago,” mentioned Warren Urquhart, a nurse in transplant and oncology items. “We was on the front lines of the city when everything came to a stop. And now we need to come to a stop so they can understand how much we mean to this hospital and to the patients.”
The union for nurses, the New York State Nurses Association, mentioned they needed to strike as a result of continual understaffing leaves them caring for too many sufferers.
Jed Basubas mentioned he typically attends to eight to 10 sufferers at a time, twice the perfect quantity within the items the place he works. Nurse practitioner Juliet Escalon mentioned she typically skips lavatory breaks to take care of sufferers. So does Ashleigh Woodside, who mentioned her 12-hour operating-room shifts usually stretch to 14 hours as a result of brief staffing forces her and others to work time beyond regulation.
“We love our job. We want to take care of our patients. But we just want to d it safely and in a humane way, where we feel appreciated,” mentioned Woodside, who has been a nurse for eight years.
The hospitals mentioned that they had provided the identical raises — totaling 19% over three years — that the union had accepted at a number of different amenities the place contract talks reached tentative agreements in current days.
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 have made to attract and hire more new nurses, despite a global shortage of healthcare workers that is impacting hospitals across the country.”
The hospitals mentioned Monday that that they had ready for the strike and had been working to attenuate the disruption.
“We remain committed to seamless and compassionate care, recognizing that the union leadership’s decision will spark fear and uncertainty across our community,” Montefiore mentioned. “This is a sad day for New York City.”
Mount Sinai known as the union “reckless.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and the hospitals late Sunday to take their dispute to binding arbitration. Montefiore’s administration had mentioned it was prepared to let an arbitrator settle the contract “as a means to reaching an equitable outcome.”
The union didn’t instantly settle for the proposal. In an announcement, it mentioned Hochul, a Democrat, “should listen to the frontline COVID nurse heroes and respect our federally-protected labor and collective bargaining rights.”
Both hospitals had been preparing for a walkout by transferring sufferers, together with intensive-care newborns at Mount Sinai.
Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the final of a gaggle of hospitals with contracts with the union that expired concurrently. The Nurses Association had i nitially warned that it could strike in any respect of them on the identical time — a possible calamity even in a metropolis with as many hospitals as New York.
But one after the other, the opposite hospitals struck agreements with the union because the deadline approached.
Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital ratified a deal Saturday that may give them raises of seven%, 6%, and 5% over the subsequent three years whereas additionally rising staffing ranges. That deal, which covers 4,000 nurses, has been seen as a template for the negotiations with different hospital techniques.
Nurses at two amenities within the Mount Sinai system additionally tentatively agreed to contracts Sunday. But there was no such pact on the system’s flagship hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
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Associated Press author Karen Matthews contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”