On the third day of the nurses’ strike, Montefiore nurses, elected officials and community supporters held another rally, accusing hospital management of greed and investing less in Bronx patients compared to those in Westchester County.
Nearly 15,000 members of the New York State Nurses’ Association (NYSNA) from prominent New York City private hospitals — Montefiore, New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai — walked off the job on Monday.
Since then, hundreds have picketed outside each Montefiore campus from morning to night, using music, bullhorns, whistles, bells and signs to draw attention. Today’s rally at the Moses Campus on East 210th Street drew an even bigger crowd, requiring a heavier police presence to clear the pedestrian walkway and keep congested traffic moving.
Standing near the emergency room doors with a giant inflatable rat in the background, several members of the nurses’ union spoke to the crowd, as did a cardiology doctor, reprepsenatives of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and a slew of elected officials — Bronx Borough President Vanessa, Council Members Shirley Aldebol, Eric Dinowitz and Pierina Sanchez, Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz, Senator Nathalia Fernandez, Brooklyn Assembly Member Brian Cunningham and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, former NYSNA president, told the crowd that the union’s fight is “way bigger than a contract.”
“Our fight is for the soul of this hospital, for the practice of nursing and for the defense of our marginalized communities that are being treated like second-class citizens,” she said.
Sheridan-Gonzalez said that Montefiore epitomizes a “two-tier health system” in the state.
“The patients in White Plains get private rooms, get millions of dollars invested in the physical plant, while our patients languish in emergency rooms for days at a time, packed in like sardines,” she said.
“Hospitals should be humanitarian locations, not places to collect money, but that’s what it’s become.”
Erika Perrotta, a Montefiore emergency department nurse who grew up in the Norwood neighborhood, said the corporation is currently working on a project that will double the size of the White Plains emergency room. The new building, slated for completion in 2028, is expected to cost $750 million.
On the other hand, last spring, management proposed a “restructuring” plan for the Bronx facility that would reduce the number of beds and result in patients being transferred to suburban hospitals. Nurses also rallied against that move.
According to a Montefiore spokesperson, patients’ wait times in the emergency department, either to go home or to a clinical bed, have reduced significantly since 2023.
However, the Bronx emergency room is still plagued by “chronic overcrowding,” according to Perrotta. Patients are packed in “to the point where you cannot walk from one side of the department to the other to reach your patient, and it’s unacceptable,” she said.
To Perrotta, the disparity is stark. “Why is it that when a patient lives in the wrong zip code, or doesn’t look like the patients that live in White Plains, that they get subpar care?”
Several speakers also pointed out that Montefiore’s CEO, Dr. Philip Ozuah, took in $16.5 million in total compensation in 2024, making him the state’s second-highest paid hospital executive.
In a statement sent to the Bronx Times, a Montefiore spokesperson refuted the accusation that Bronx investment is lagging. He cited the opening of a 21-bed pediatric psychiatric facility in the Bronx in late November, designed to address mental health needs in the borough and reduce emergency room visits, he said.
The spokesperson also sent several workplace safety initiatives and said that Montefiore’s nurse turnover rate is better than the national average, having improved 51% since 2021.
However, the rally showed that the battle between nurses and management is getting ugly.
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, who at times shouted angrily into the microphone, said the union has shown up ready to negotiate since October, while “management decided to stay in their office eating bonbons and not showing up.”
“We ask that you don’t leave our patients in the hallway for days,” Hagans shouted.
“We will negotiate fair wages,” Hagans said. “But we will not cut corners when it comes to patient care.”
Elected officials pledged to support the nurses, regardless of how long the strike lasts.
Aldebol, who was a 32BJ SEIU union executive before her election to City Council in November, said she was especially disturbed by the news that three Mount Sinai nurses were fired just before the strike began.
Hospital management accused the nurses of hiding supplies and undermining pre-strike preparation efforts, but the fired nurses denied that claim, saying they were let go in retaliation for the union’s actions.
“Union busting is disgusting,” Aldebol said, as the nurses chanted with her. “This is a union town, and New Yorkers are not gonna tolerate it.”
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
