Casi 15.000 enfermeras de Nueva York inician huelga en hospitales de Manhattan y el Bronx

Nearly 15,000 nurses are walking off the job at hospitals across Manhattan and the Bronx on Monday morning after contract talks with hospitals faltered over the weekend.

The New York State Nurses Association, making good on strike threats announced weeks ago, sent the first picket lines up before 6 a.m. outside the affected medical centers, which are operated by Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Harlem early Monday, striking nurses bundled up against the cold chanted «the nurses united will never be defeated» as they cheered on each other.

“I was on strike three years ago, and it sucks to be back outside, having to fight for health care, having to fight to protect my patients, having to fight to be protected myself,” said Donovan Carey, an emergency-room nurse at the hospital. He said “safe staffing” levels were needed to protect patients, and nurses are demanding metal detectors at each entrance to the hospital to help prevent shootings.

“Hospitals are to be places of healing, not of fear,” Carey said, noting nurses are also pressing for clearer policies around federal immigration agents’ access to hospitals.

NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said ahead of the walkout that nurses preferred to continue providing patient care, “but our bosses have given nurses no other option but to strike.”

A spokesperson for Montefiore said on Sunday that he anticipated this strike could last weeks.

Dr. Brendan Carr, CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, shared a similarly bleak outlook in a memo to employees Sunday afternoon.

“The planning and personnel costs required to responsibly run our hospitals for what we anticipate could be a long strike are substantial, but we are prepared to maintain these operations,” Carr said.

The work stoppage, which the union said would be the largest by nurses in city history, comes as hospitals are anticipating significant financial losses as a result of federal cuts to Medicaid and other health care funding. The nurses’ prior agreements expired Dec. 31.

The last nurses’ strike in New York City was in 2023, after nurses had been hailed as heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic. It lasted three days before nurses won significant salary boosts and new staffing guarantees. This time, nurses say they are fighting to protect those gains and address other issues like workplace violence.

Representatives of Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian say NYSNA’s proposed salary and benefit packages will drive up hospital costs by billions of dollars in the coming years as they face down these financial pressures.

But union leaders argued that less well-financed hospitals have already managed to settle negotiations with the union.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Sunday evening in a statement on X he was “relieved that most hospitals have reached an agreement and urge the remaining parties to stay at the table and reach a deal that both honors our nurses and keeps our hospitals open.”

He added the city’s Emergency Management agency, FDNY and public hospital system were closely monitoring the situation and coordinating on contingency plans.

The nurses association said on Sunday it was still negotiating over wages with the three medical centers but were also prioritizing demands related to workplace safety. It cited recent violent incidents at hospitals, as well as health benefits and staffing standards.

Carr said in Sunday’s memo that the cost of hiring outside nurses and making other contingency plans for the strike was eating into Mount Sinai’s budget for meeting unionized nurses’ demands.

He added that despite ongoing negotiations “the list of items left to resolve is long.”

The nurses association has countered in recent days that hospitals could have used their budgets to meet the union’s demands ahead of the planned strike, rather than spending money on strike preparations.

Carr said that in addition to recruiting temporary workers, Mount Sinai has also been making other adjustments to prepare for the strike that could affect patient care. He said the health system has been working to identify patients who could be safely discharged, transferring patients between Mount Sinai facilities based on their capacity and rescheduling appointments and operations as needed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Friday because of the strike, declaring a disaster emergency that allows doctors and nurses from other states and Canada to practice in New York.

Hochul urged nurses and hospital management to work to reach an agreement to avoid a strike, which she said could put New Yorkers’ lives in jeopardy.

But on Sunday evening, the governor conceded a strike was likely and said the state Department of Health would have staff at all affected hospitals for the strike‘s duration “to ensure patient safety and continuity of care.”

Ahead of the walkout, Hagans invited patients to join the nurses.

“Patients are welcome to join us [on the picket line] después de que los atiendan”, dijo Hagans.

Esto es lo que más debes saber

Las huelgas en las ubicaciones de Mount Sinai estaban programadas para comenzar a las 6 am del lunes y en los hospitales operados por NewYork-Presbyterian y Montefiore Medical Center a las 7 am.

Lugares de ataque:

• Hospital Mount Sinai, Morningside y West;
• el Hospital Allen de NewYork-Presbyterian, el Hospital Infantil Morgan Stanley y el Centro Médico Irving de la Universidad de Columbia;
• Hospital Jack D. Weiler del Centro Médico Montefiore, campus Henry y Lucy Moses, campus Hutchinson y Hospital Infantil de Montefiore

La Gestión de Emergencias dijo antes de la huelga que trabajaría con los hospitales para coordinar los traslados de pacientes y desviar las ambulancias según fuera necesario.

Esta es una noticia de última hora y se ha actualizado con información adicional.