Nurses

Fifteen thousand New York nurses are more than three weeks into their strike for a fairer contract. Yesterday members of the New York State Nurses Association braved below-freezing temperatures to march across the Brooklyn Bridge and deliver a message to City Hall. Hundreds of nurses joined together in Cadman Plaza Park, clad in cherry-red NYSNA beanies and holding aloft signs that read “Safe Staffing Saves Lives,” “Quality Healthcare for All,” and “Hospital Execs Literally Make Us Sick." As their procession stretched out across the bridge, chanting nurses were treated to applause from passersby and blaring honks from supportive onlookers below.

Maggie Latona is one of more than 15,000 nurses in the New York State Nurses Association currently on strike. She is also a member of the union’s Contract Action Team which has engaged with members to determine what they want to fight for. She joined “The Indypendent News Hour”, our weekly radio show, on Tuesday from the picket line outside Mount Sinai Hospital, to discuss the nurses’ strike, what’s at stake in their fight, and how patient care is impacted by the current conditions nurses are working under. Latona also detailed the ways in which some of the wealthiest hospital networks in the city, like Mount Sinai, New York Presbyterian and Montefiore, are overcharging patients and leaving their nursing staff without adequate protection or support.

New York, Jan. 13 — Do you remember when New York City nurses were heroes? When they showed up every day at the height of the pandemic, risking their lives to save thousands from a deadly and highly contagious virus? The city clapped and banged pots at 7 p.m. for them. Politicians called them angels. Their courage was the thin white line between life and death for a city in crisis. But the executives at New York’s largest and richest private hospital networks — Mount Sinai, New York-Presbyterian, and Montefiore — have short memories. In the cold dawn of the new year, they have chosen not to honor that sacrifice, but to betray it.