NEW YORK — Fifteen thousand nurses at three of New York City’s major hospital systems — Montefiore, Mount Sinai and New York-Presbyterian — entered their second week on strike here Jan. 19. The workers walked out at 10 locations on Jan. 12. This is the largest nurses’ strike in New York City’s history.
The nurses are fighting to maintain staffing ratios that were won three years ago, safe working conditions and decent health care benefits. With thousands of nurses on strike and only 10 locations to cover, the picket lines are large and spirited, helping keep strikers upbeat.
“We won both staffing ratios and the right to enforce them when we struck three years ago,” Karin Tarasenko, who works in the Labor and Delivery Department at the main hospital in the Mount Sinai system in East Harlem, told the Militant. “Now they’re trying to take all that language out of the contract.”
Another labor and delivery nurse on the picket line across town at Mount Sinai West explained what the ratios mean. “One nurse should attend to one woman giving birth,” she said. “But sometimes the lack of nurses means there’s only one nurse to two women giving birth. When a woman is at high risk, minutes and seconds can make the difference in the outcome. The hospitals need to increase staffing so that when there is a crisis it can be all hands on deck.”
“In orthopedics here at Mount Sinai Hospital they are trying to change the ratio from one nurse per five patients to one nurse for eight or nine patients,” Voni Robinson said. “And sometimes, when they don’t have a bed in the right department, we get a patient who belongs on another floor,” like oncology or cardiology. “Then you’re caring for someone who’s not in your specialty.” This happens more now since they’re shutting down other hospitals in the city, like Beth Israel, she said.
“We’re fighting for what’s right,” Kate Stevens said. “It’s not just the staffing. They’re trying to make us pay more for our health insurance. At the same time, they haven’t signed a new contract with the insurance company that provides our insurance. So now going to a doctor at Mount Sinai is out of network!”
Other unionists and some former patients are joining the nurses on the picket lines. Marina Meijer, a teacher at P.S. 139, walked the picket line at Mount Sinai West. She denounced the vile slander campaign by the hospitals that the nurses union protects nurses who come to work drunk. “People accuse the teachers union of protecting ‘bad teachers’ too,” she said. “But the unions make sure no one gets treated unfairly and everyone has due process.”
To join in supporting the nurses strike, get information on picket times, as well as special events, go to www.nysna.org/news/take-action-support-nyc-nurses-strike. To contribute to the nurses’ strike fund, go to https://nysna.tfaforms.net/5110966.
Candace Wagner contributed to this article.