[ad_1]
NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (AP) Negotiations to prevent the departure of 10,000 New York City nurses entered their final weekend, as some major hospitals were already preparing for a possible strike on Friday, sending ambulances elsewhere and diverting some patients, Including vulnerable newborns.
The strike could start early Monday at several private hospitals, including two of the city’s largest: Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, each with more than 1,000 sheets hospital bed.
They and several other hospitals are haggling with nurses who want pay rises and an end to what they say is an unsustainable staffing crunch, nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic.
“New York City hospitals have been understaffed for years, a breach of our trust, and since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, understaffing has only It gets worse.” “It’s time for them to come to the table and come up with the safe staffing standards that nurses and our patients deserve.”
The talks follow some work actions at other U.S. hospitals as nurses endure a period of health risks and heavy workloads at the height of the virus crisis. The profession is facing burnout, and many nurses have since left the profession, or at least full-time hospital jobs.
Nurses at a Massachusetts hospital ended a nearly 10-month strike last January, the longest in the state’s history. Thousands of nurses at two California hospitals went on strike for a week in May.
The talks took a sharp turn at Mount Sinai, where the union – the New York State Nurses Association – said management had left the table and called off talks on Friday.
“Shame on you, Mount Sinai,” Hagens said.
The hospital countered that the union was “reckless” in insisting at Sinai for higher wages than the tentative contractual agreements it had just struck with some other hospitals.
“The union is jeopardizing patient care by forcing valuable Mount Sinai nurses to choose between their dedication to patient care and their own livelihoods,” the hospital said in a statement, calling on the union to “be at the negotiating table.” Meet us on” “
Hagens said the union insisted on increasing staffing to put patient care first.
Faced with a possible strike, Mount Sinai said it was beginning to cancel some elective surgeries, divert most ambulances and transfer some patients from its flagship hospital and two affiliated hospitals — Mount Sinai Western and Mount Sinai Morningside — Including newborns in the intensive care unit. Each has about 500 beds.
In the event of a strike, the Morningside campus will only operate the emergency room and the inpatient children’s psychiatric unit, according to a message sent to staff by the hospital’s president on Wednesday.
Negotiations are also continuing at Montefiore and two other hospitals, the roughly 850-bed BronxCare Health System and the 300-bed Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens.
Flushing spokesman Michael Hink said negotiations were ongoing. Spokespeople for Montefiore and BronxCare had no immediate comment Friday.
BronxCare said Thursday it was confident a deal would be reached, while Montefiore senior vice president Joe Solmonese said the nurses rejected the “generous” offer. It mirrors wage increases agreed to elsewhere by the union, along with the addition of 78 emergency room nurses and increases in wages, benefits and staffing, he said.
On Dec. 30, the day before their contracts expired, the nurses gave 10 days’ notice of their planned strike. Such notifications are required by law so hospitals have time to arrange temporary replacements.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, a large medical center, reached a tentative agreement with the union the next day. Maimonides and Richmond University Medical Center reached a preliminary agreement on Jan. 4. All three deals call for a series of annual pay increases of 7%, 6% and 5% for a total of about 6,000 nurses, according to the union.
But “it’s not just about pay,” Hagens said at Thursday’s briefing. “It’s about caring for our patients. It’s about safety.”
Nurses are pressing for commitments to what they consider the gold-standard staffing levels, such as at least one nurse for every sickest patient in an intensive care unit and one nurse for about four patients in a typical medical-surgical ward. Nurse.
Meanwhile, talks are underway with four private hospitals in Brooklyn. Nurses there have yet to approve the strike, although the vote is underway, Hagens said. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
[ad_2]
Source link