The largest nurses strike in Big Apple history stretched into a second week Monday with no end in sight –as some medical workers even protested outside hospital execs’ homes.
New York State Nurses Association members went to the home of Montefiore CEO Philip Ozuah on Sunday with signs that read, “Hospital execs literally make us sick” as they decried their working conditions.
Striking workers also picketed outside the homes of executives with Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian, chanting, “No justice, no peace – until we get a fair contract,” according to the NYSNA.
“Since wealthy hospital CEOs won’t meet nurses at the bargaining table, striking nurses took their message from the picket lines directly to the hospital CEOs where they live,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a statement Sunday.
The trio of hospitals, which have tapped into traveling nurses for staffing, had no immediate comment to The Post on the tactics.
More than 15,000 nurses have been on strike against the major hospitals in the city since last Monday, with some saying they are ready for the long haul.
“How long are we willing to fight for? Until this hospital is willing to come to the table and have a fair conversation about this,” said ICU nurse Josh Wilson, 45, outside NY-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center on Monday.
“I personally am willing to fight till the very end,” he said.
The hospitals and nurses are at odds over various issues, including pay, staffing levels and health-insurance benefits.
About 1,000 nurses demonstrated outside NY-Presbyterian medical facilities in the frigid temperatures with hand and foot warmers laid out on a table Monday.
Cindy Collier, a 61-year-old nurse with Milstein Hospital in the system, said healthcare workers are stretched too thin and patients are quick to blame them.
“We stand strong, and we are out here for as long as it takes, because it’s not fair for patients to go back into the working conditions we are in,” said the 36-year nurse.
Another Milstein nurse, Bobby Ancog, 58, said he thinks hospital executives are attempting to wait out the striking staff “because they know we have bills to pay.
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“I think I can manage, but I don’t know about the others,” he said.
Hospital leaders didn’t seem optimistic the strike was close to over.
Mount Sinai CEO Brendan Carr said in an email to staff Monday, “A near-term path to an agreement is very unlikely.
“As I indicated when I last wrote to you, our negotiating teams met with NYSNA’s negotiating teams on Friday. After little progress was made at either table, the mediators told the parties to break,” he wrote, adding no additional meetings are scheduled for now.
Montefiore said Monday that “progress overall will not be possible” with the nurses until “they can back away from their reckless and dangerous $3.6 billion demands.
“In the meantime, we continue to provide the world-class care our communities deserve,” a hospital rep said.
NY-Presbyterian did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment.
Nurses met with NY-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai officials late last week, and were at the bargaining table with Montefiore management Sunday evening, according to the nurses’ union.
“I really didn’t think we were going to be out here this long, but we are prepared,” said Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital pediatric ER nurse Vanessa Moreira, 35.
