NYC nurses strike, patients fighting for treatment speak of ordeal at two major NYC hospitals

Since Monday, 7,000 nurses at two of New York’s largest hospitals have been on strike, procedures have been canceled, patients have been transferred or discharged, and ambulances have been diverted to Mount Sinai in the Upper East Side and Montefiore in the Bronx. As the strike dragged on into Wednesday’s third day, the Daily News spoke to workers on the picket lines and to patients and families seeking help.

Oge Akunedozi has traveled to Jack D. Weiler Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx from her home in Connecticut to work at the maternity hospital since 2017. This week, she stood with her colleagues on the picket line outside and reminisced about some of the darkest moments of her life. career.

“Every day before I go to work, I pray,” says 38-year-old Akunedozi. “I am religious; I believe in a higher power. I am Catholic. So before I get out of the car, I pray to protect my rights, protect myself, protect my patients. And then I go in because I never know what will be behind those doors.”

Oge Akunedoji

Her department is so understaffed, she said, that when her appendix nearly ruptured while on the job, she continued to work until the end of her shift and then went to the hospital’s emergency room, where she was placed on a stretcher in the hallway.

“Honestly, I would never visit this ED again. … It was scary for me because I saw firsthand how few staff they have there and how the nurses are not given the tools to do their job. [They’re] he just said, “Go figure it out.” You’re up to your ears in patients.

Cassie Anzalone, 28, a Weiler ICU nurse who lives in Orange County, New York, fears what might happen to the babies she is currently caring for.

“They waited two days before the strike to start transporting children to other outlying hospitals. We still have a lot of seriously ill babies,” she said, looking at the hospital. “So they are doing everything they can to staff right now, but… they are dealing with an understaffed ICU right now for one day. We’ve been asking for years… so you should raise your voice a little.”

Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nursing Association, speaks outside the Montefiore Moses campus on Tuesday.

Melissa Frascone, 30, is a neonatal intensive care unit nurse instructor who lives half an hour from Weiler in Connecticut. Frascone comes to work in her spare time to make sure the night shift nurses in the intensive care unit are adequately supported and are constantly working past their scheduled shift. “I work the night shift because this is where support is needed right now,” she said.

“I work four shifts of 10 hours, but this is not enough,” she said. “Four tens become four thirteen.” And it never ends – we only have one me on the day shift. So I cross,” Frascone said.

Melissa Frascone

“Working in our environment really changes the way you think,” she adds. “This is an ethical dilemma. Most of the time, these children, these families, are going through the most difficult moment of crisis, the worst days of their lives. So we take them on, whether we have children or not, we treat them like our own children. Therefore, we bear this burden with them and give them all possible support. And for that you have to have fewer patients.”

Alyssa George, a telemetry nurse, brought her one-year-old son in a wheelchair to the picket line. She watched fellow nurses cheer and passing cars honk as she rocked the stroller back and forth. Before giving birth to her son, George worked at Mount Sinai and then took a job in Montefiore to be closer to home.

“I knew every hospital would be the same,” she said. “There is a shortage of personnel everywhere. But I would rather walk to work than spend 40 minutes on the road to solve the same thing.

She often handles more patients than she should, handling six patients at a time. Patients often resent the fact that they are not given enough attention.

“It’s dangerous, but we’re doing everything we can to keep patients safe… They think we’re ignoring them. Some of them who are educated and have been in hospitals are getting it. But other people, they don’t care. They think we’re ignoring them, that we don’t care. But it’s not them.”

A nurses' rally near the Montefiore Moses campus on Tuesday.

Tiny Lugo, a home health assistant, visited Montefiore to see her type 1 diabetic sister, who was facing kidney failure and was awaiting dialysis. Sister Lugo is having a hard time in the hospital now because there are fewer nurses caring for her.

“There are no nurses,” Lugo, 31, said. “A nurse comes every hour to check on patients, but that’s about it.”

Lugo said she sympathized with the striking nurses, but feared their strike would drag on until the end of the week.

“I understand why they are teaming up,” she said. But I had to come every day. I come every day to check on her.”

Castle Hill, Bronx, OG Y resident, stopped by a food truck outside of Montefiore Weiler after visiting his mother, who has the flu and pneumonia.

“Quiet,” he said. “My mom is on the seventh floor. Very quiet. Nicely. nurses [are] calm, cool and collected today. They are doing a good job at the moment.”

OG Yu.

He said many of the hospital beds had been empty since last week, when his mother was admitted to the hospital.

“Now it’s not so crowded. There aren’t many patients there, but the nurses there are doing a wonderful job, great job. The ones that are there are doing it.”

On Monday, 80-year-old Carol Green went to Mount Sinai for an appointment with a cardiologist. The strike was a little confusing for her – she had to make her way on her walkers through the crowds of picketing nurses, and the visit to the doctor took longer than usual.

“The doctor did everything that the nurses did… Usually there is a nurse there to weigh and stuff, but she herself had to do it. It wasn’t that hard, but I still missed those nurses.”

Green said she was in the hospital for a follow-up visit and expected everything to be back to normal by the next.

“I’m not upset, I just want them to do what they need to be treated the way they should.”

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