Shooting Up: Ep. 16
Nurses on Strike
It must be an incredibly strange time to be a nurse in New York City. The days of “banging pots and pans every evening to thank our healthcare workers” are barely in the rearview mirror. Social media is awash in fanvids for The Pitt and its charcoal-scrubbed dream team. Meanwhile, 15,000 of NYC’s nurses have been striking since January 12th for better working conditions — making it both the largest and longest nursing strike in the city’s history.
If you haven’t been following the strike, now is the perfect time to catch up. Check out the link below for recent developments. If you’re a paid subscriber, here’s a two-minute overview, plus a little nursing station Pitt gossip and why my camera’s sitting on top of a rubber mixing bowl.
UPDATE: as of several hours ago, an tentative agreement has been reached to end the strike at 3 major hospitals!
"For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care," NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said a statement. "Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high after winning fair tentative contracts that maintain enforceable safe staffing ratios, improve protections from workplace violence, and maintain health benefits with no additional out-of-pocket costs for frontline nurses."
Fingers crossed that the remaining nurses from NY-Presbyterian can secure the same deal.
Take care and cope well, everyone!
