The New York City nurses strike continues, even after both sides returned to the bargaining table Thursday.

It comes after the largest nurses strike in the city’s history stretched into its fourth day, and is expected to go longer than the 2023 walkout. 

Nearly 15,000 nurses across three major hospital networks are involved. NewYork-Presbyterian said it would resume bargaining with the nurses union Thursday evening, with the help of a mediator, but as of 10 p.m., no deal had been reached.

Nurses were joined by FDNY firefighters and other unions at Mount Sinai Morningside. 

Hospital leaders at NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore and Mount Sinai say they’re maintaining operations with travel nurses and other personnel. Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West and NewYork-Presbyterian in Manhattan and Montefiore Einstein in the Bronx are the impacted hospitals. 

The New York State Nurses Association, or NYSNA, has accused the three hospital systems of refusing to compromise on improving staffing levels, health care benefits, and boosting workplace safety. 

“These greedy employers brag about spending millions to replace their own nurses with replacements that are not as highly qualified,” NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said. “My message to you – take those millions, invest them into our communities, invest them into safe patient care, invest it into medical coverage, invest it toward workers protection.”

“They just don’t hire enough nurses”

“I’ve been kicked to the ribs where it leaves bruises, spit on, pushed, punched, sexually assaulted,” nurse Sheryl Ostroff said. 

Ostroff, who works in the Mount Sinai Morningside emergency department as a charge nurse, said patient violence left her injured, and offered photos that she said show only some of what’s she’s experienced over 23 years there. 

“They’re in an overcrowded E.R., who have to share their nurse with 15 to 20 other patients,” Ostroff said. “It’s understandable they get frustrated, and sometimes they just continue to take it out on us because we’re right there.” 

Protection from workplace violence is one of the nurses’ key demands, along with safe staffing. 

“They just don’t hire enough nurses. They don’t hire enough security,” Ostroff said. 

“On our unit, the most patients will have is possibly six to one nurse. But on a really bad day, you can have up to eight. And then imagine somebody needs to go on break, and you need to cover them. Now, instead of having eight patients, you have 16,” nurse Anjolee Spence said. 

“This hospital makes a good profit off of its patients”

“If the safety net hospitals, all eight of them, could come to the table and say let’s put patients before profits … why can’t the three richest hospitals in New York City come to the same agreement?” another nurse said.

“This hospital makes a good profit off of its patients,” Mount Sinai West nurse Michel Ng said. “It should actually take care of what’s taking care of its patients.”

All three hospitals continue to push back. Mount Sinai said NYSNA has not provided a reasonable offer, and instead it’s “sticking to proposals that would cost $1.6 billion over three years just at The Mount Sinai Hospital, raising average nurse pay to close to $250,000, which is before factoring in contributions we make to benefits.”

“If you cut my health care, I won’t be able to provide health care to my family,” said Emmaline Geronimo, who has been a nurse at Mount Sinai West for 25 years.

“You pick a fight with the nurses, and you pick a fight with all of us,” Rich Maroko of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council said. 

“We are here because we really care. This is our family. This is our home,” Ostroff said.

Annabelle Thompson is a first-year labor and delivery nurse, but said she’s here for the long run.

“We’re fighting for our contract now, but also for the contracts of future nurses,” she said. “I think of nurses 10 years from now. I hope that they get even better contracts because of what we are doing.”

“You deserve better”

Mount Sinai said 23% of nurses have returned to work. In a video message Thursday, Mount Sinai’s CEO claimed the nurses union has been harassing and intimidating them. 

“Bullying, intimidating and threatening devalues nurses, undermines our culture, and is not consistent with our values at Mount Sinai. You deserve better,” Mount Sinai CEO Brendan Carr said.

“We’ve communicated with all the nurses on the pros and cons of if you have to go in,” Geronimo said.

All of the impacted hospitals remain open. They have brought in travel nurses to help staff with operations. 

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