More than 7,000 nurses at two New York City hospitals are headed back to work after a three-day strike for safe staffing. The New York City Nurses Association (NYSNA) agreed on a contract with Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx that includes "concrete enforceable safe staffing ratios," according to the union.
"NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes," NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a statement. "Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care.
Mount Sinai nurses won "wall-to-wall safe staffing ratios for inpatient units with firm enforcement so that there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper," the union said in a press release.
Montefiore secured safe staffing ratios in the emergency department, with "new staffing language and financial penalties for failing to comply with safe staffing levels in all units."
Nurses at both hospitals agreed to immediate return-to-work agreements, so they will be returning to work this morning. Montefiore and Mount Sinai have more than 1,000 beds each, and have struggled in recent years to fill nursing positions.
