1000’s of New York Metropolis nurses are poised to strike on Monday as they decry staffing ranges they are saying create unsafe circumstances for sufferers.
5 establishments, together with models of the large Mount Sinai Well being System Inc., are nonetheless in talks towards a decision with about 10,000 members of the New York State Nurses Affiliation. Three others have reached tentative agreements.
The pandemic pushed already-existing staffing shortages to disaster ranges, forcing hospitals to usher in non permanent employees whose wages may swell to tons of of {dollars} an hour. Hospitals say they’ve been slammed by the upper prices for labor and provides, pointing to billions in losses, whereas nurses counter that they’ve paid their executives handsomely and under-invested in employees for years.
“Our bosses created the understaffing disaster by failing to rent and retain nurses,” union president Nancy Hagans mentioned throughout a briefing Thursday. “It’s not nearly compensation, it’s about caring for sufferers, it’s about security.”
Mount Sinai Well being System didn’t reply to requests for remark. Hospitals routinely make contingency plans for something that might disrupt operations, Healthcare Affiliation of New York State president Bea Grause mentioned in an emailed assertion.
“Hospitals statewide are going through extreme workforce and financial crises, together with an ongoing nationwide workforce scarcity,” Grause mentioned.
NewYork-Presbyterian reached an settlement with 4,000 members Dec. 31, and the union arrived at tentative contracts on behalf of 1,300 employees at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Middle and with 550 at Richmond College Medical Middle on Staten Island late Wednesday. Negotiations proceed at BronxCare Well being System, Flushing Hospital Medical Middle, Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Morningside and West.