One nurse supervisor at Mount Sinai, who requested that her title be withheld to guard her job, described circumstances over the previous two days that she felt had been harmful for sufferers. She mentioned that managers had been advised that extra momentary journey nurses could be employed to assist cowl for the putting nurses however that a lot of them apparently didn’t present up and that the working circumstances for these filling in weren’t sustainable.
Throughout the hospital, nursing managers have been pressed into service as flooring nurses, even those that haven’t dealt immediately with sufferers for a very long time, she mentioned. Some don’t know easy methods to use all of the gear, so they’re leaning closely on the journey nurses who’re there, she mentioned, and the journey nurses aren’t aware of all the gear, both.
Each hospitals originated from Nineteenth-century Jewish philanthropic efforts, and each have undertaken breakneck growth efforts over the previous decade. However they’re very completely different establishments.
Going through Central Park, Mount Sinai attracts many sufferers from each East Harlem and the Higher East Aspect, but additionally from elsewhere within the metropolis. Extra sufferers have industrial insurance coverage, relatively than government-sponsored Medicaid, which implies that the hospital is paid higher for every affected person than hospitals in different boroughs, the place extra sufferers are likely to have lower-reimbursing Medicaid.
A decade in the past, Mount Sinai merged with one other community of hospitals that included Beth Israel and the 2 campuses of St. Luke’s Roosevelt, rising as one of many largest hospital techniques within the metropolis. The strike impacts solely the principle Mount Sinai campus.
Montefiore, the most important hospital system within the Bronx, has tried to emphasise that its monetary place may be very completely different from these of different hospitals negotiating with the nurses’ union. There are strikes at three campuses, together with the Moses campus, its principal web site. Medicaid sufferers outnumber these with industrial insurance coverage by two to at least one. In an announcement final week, a Montefiore vice chairman, Joe Solmonese, famous that the system had misplaced $200 million final yr, whereas a number of the main hospital techniques negotiating with the nurses’ union had been operating at a revenue.
However Montefiore has additionally expanded over the past decade, buying a number of hospitals in Westchester County and the decrease Hudson Valley. Extra just lately, job postings at Montefiore have indicated that it’s planning to open “a concierge/government drugs” service, based mostly at Hudson Yards, an expensive neighborhood on Manhattan’s West Aspect, searching for extra sufferers with industrial insurance coverage.
