Strike affecting 10,000 New York City nurses to begin April 2

NEW YORK — Nurses from three major New York hospitals could go on strike in two weeks, members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) announced Monday at a rally outside Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side.

Members of NYSNA said Monday that the strike will commence on Tuesday, April 2, if hospital management does not address their concerns

Should the strike happen, it could affect more than 10,000 nurses across the Montefiore Medical Center, New York—Presybyterian Hospital and Mount Sinai hospital systems.

While the organization said the nurses don't want to strike, they are doing so to advocate for better care for patients in the long run.

The nurses said because their hospitals refuse to hire enough bedside caregivers, they are forced to care for up to 19 patients at the same time.

"When that happens, our patients suffer," a press release stated.

Earlier in March, registered nurses from 13 facilities across the city voted to authorize the strike amid reports of "horrendous conditions that patients are dealing with inside hospitals."

In 2018, 20,000 nurses from Montefiore , New York—Presybyterian and Mount Sinai signed protests of assignment for unsafe conditions, including a six-hour wait time for pediatric patients in the emergency department, unsafe staffing in the neonatal intensive care unit and patients stacked on stretchers in hallways for days waiting for an available room.

NYSNA is New York's largest union for registered nurses, representing over 42,000 nurses in the state.