Thousands of NY Nurses Threaten to Strike, Maimonides Strikes a Deal

By Yehudit Garmaise

With just four days left before as many as 12,000 nurses statewide threatening to strike starting on Jan. 9 at seven major NYC hospitals, the leadership at Mount Sinai Health System has launched drastic measures to protect their patients.

The strike would send already busy hospitals into full-on crisis mode, and could potentially have a devastating impact on care.

"It could be an enormous public health calamity," said Ken Raske of the Greater New York Hospital Association, who described the mood among hospital managers as "extremely apprehensive."

Hospital staffers at Mt. Sinai are feverishly working to transfer patients, cancel elective surgeries, and divert the majority of their ambulances to other hospitals.

In the mean time, the leaders of Maimonides Medical Center reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the nurses, who are union members of the New York State Nurses Association.

“We believe our agreement is fair and respects the needs of all parties while also helping us better serve our patients,” said Maimonides Health CEO Ken Gibbs and NYSNA President Nancy Hagans RN, who hailed “the essential contributions of our indispensable nursing staff.”

The successful negotiations that both Maimonides and Richmond University Medical Center were able to strike with the nurses’ union will prove valuable because their success likely will put pressure on the state’s other hospitals to settle. 

Hospitals negotiate individually with their own nurses, so the number of nurses who strike will depend on how their talks go at each hospital.

The nurses are striking because they “feel abandoned and disrespected by their bosses," New York State Nurses Association president Nancy Hagans told nbcnewyork.com. "We held the hands of dying patients, set up last FaceTime calls so dying patients could say goodbye to their loved ones."

The leaders of Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, and Mount Sinai West said in a memo that they feel that most, but not all, of the nurses’ issues have been resolved.

"To do what is best for our patients, we have no choice but to proceed with our strike planning," says the memo, which sadly explained they would have to “transfer 50 NICU babies outside the Mount Sinai Health System to ensure they get the care they so desperately need."

The parents of the NICU babies, who are already in distress, do not appear to have been notified that their babies would have to be moved to another facility, said a hospital source, but no babies have yet been moved.

Mount Sinai also plans to discharge, “as many patients as appropriate.”

In addition to Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, BronxCare, and Flushing Hospital Medical Center are also on notice for the potential nurses’ strike.