7000 NYC Nurses Walk Off the Job at Mt. Sinai & Montefiore Threatening Potential Chaos

Edited by: Fern Sidman

More than 7,000 nurses walked off the job at two major New York City hospitals early Monday after contract talks broke down overnight, threatening potential chaos at the crucial health facilities, according to a report in the New York Post.

As many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan were off the job. The AP reported that talks were set to resume Monday afternoon at Montefiore, but there was no immediate word on when bargaining might resume at Mount Sinai.

The massive staffing blow at Mount Sinai Hospital’s main campus in Manhattan and three locations of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx was set to force the hospital to divert ambulances and some patients, including women about to give birth, to other facilities, officials said, according to the Post report.

Oren Barzilay, president of the FDNY’s EMS union, told The Post on Monday that emergency workers were preparing for the worst and would reroute their vehicles from affected hospitals if the facilities “can’t handle a certain medical emergency.”

An estimated 450 nurses gathered outside Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side on Monday,  singing Twisted Sister’s classic hit “We’re Not Gonna Take it” and urging passing drivers to honk their horns in solidarity, the Post reported.

“It is time for the hospitals to treat these nurses fairly, with the dignity and respect they deserve, to ensure nurses can get back to serving their communities by providing superior care to their patients,” Mario Cilento, the president of the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O. said in a statement on Monday, as was reported by the New York Times.

Mount Sinai administrators said in an emailed statement that the union leadership had walked out of negotiations at 1 a.m. on Monday morning, according to the NYT report. “Our first priority is the safety of our patients,” the statement said. “We’re prepared to minimize disruption, and we encourage Mount Sinai nurses to continue providing the world-class care they’re known for.”

A nurses union source told the Post on Monday, “We made some progress at negotiations at both tables last night but not enough. At both Mt. Sinai and Montefiore, the main sticking point is understaffing that harms patient care —  neither hospital has been willing to accept full accountability for enforcement of safe staffing levels in our contracts yet.”

But Mount Sinai responded in a statement saying, “Not only do they continue to demand additional wage increases, they also continue to make demands on staffing, though they responded to our offer to hire an additional 50 nurse positions by stating they would prefer those dollars to instead be reallocated to wages.”

The Post reported that the hospital added, “We are in complete agreement about the importance of attracting and retaining more nurses. … Over the last three years, we’ve hired more than 4,000 new nurses with 503 more nurses working today than in 2019 — far exceeding our 2019 hiring commitment to NYSNA.”

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx issues a statement calling Monday, “a sad day for New York City.”  They continued by saying that despite its 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, NYSNA’s leadership has decided to walk away from the bedsides of their patients. Therefore, at 6AM, NYSNA nurses will be on strike and off the job. We remain committed to seamless and compassionate care, recognizing that the union leadership’s decision will spark fear and uncertainty across our community. “

Negotiations to keep about New York City nurses from walking off the job headed into a final weekend as some major hospitals were already preparing Friday for a potential strike by sending ambulances elsewhere and transferring some patients, including vulnerable newborns, as was reported by the AP.

CNN reported that the five New York City hospitals that were set for the nursing strike Monday were Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, BronxCare and Flushing Hospital Medical Center.

They and a handful of other hospitals are bargaining with nurses who want raises and an end to what they say are untenable staffing squeezes, nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic.

Mount Sinai Hospital’s dispute with its nurses could leave expectant mothers with their own labor troubles. Some Mount Sinai doctors are being told to take their patients to Lenox Hill Hospital or NYU Langone when they go into labor. The famed New York City hospital is moving newborns in their intensive care unit to other hospitals ahead of the planned nursing strike, CNN reported.

“We have NICU infants being transferred to area hospitals today because of the strike notice,” a Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN. “We are seeking a resolution. The impact is great.”

“New York City hospitals have violated our trust through years of understaffing, and that understaffing has only gotten worse since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Nancy Hagans, the president of the New York States Nurses Association said at a news briefing Friday, according to the AP report. “It’s time they come to the table and deliver the safe staffing standards that nurses and our patients deserve.”

She added, “Our main goal in these negotiations is to improve patient care, to save staffing and fair wages, to recruit and retain nurses, “ as was reported by CNN. The union said it doesn’t know if Mount Sinai management plans to negotiate over the weekend.

Mount Sinai’s chief nursing officer, Fran Cartwright, acknowledged nurses are stretched thin, the AP reported. But she pointed to the pandemic’s disruptive sweep through people’s working lives, at bedsides and beyond.

“Our nurses are working with patients 24/7, so they’re feeling it, and I’m feeling it with them,” she said in an interview, the AP reported. “It takes years after a pandemic to add stability.”

After shouldering health risks and huge workloads at the peak of the virus crisis, the profession is facing burnout that has driven many nurses into other jobs, or at least away from full-time hospital work, the AP reported.

NYSNA has announced tentative agreements with three other New York City hospitals after giving the hospitals a 10-day warning of an impending strike, CNN reported.

Hagans, however, had strong words for Mount Sinai at Friday’s reporter briefing.

“Nurses are frustrated. We are holding the line for better staffing and salaries,” Hagans said, as was reported by CNN.