Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 10) — From 24-hour shifts with no breaks to a nurse-patient ratio of 1:20, a Filipino nurse said the massive strike at two major New York City hospitals is not about wages.
‘
Lorena Vivas, a nurse and an executive committee member of the New York State Nurses Association for Mount Sinai Hospital, told CNN Philippines the protesting nurses will continue their strike until they get the “safe staffing” that they are fighting for.
‘
“This is something that we feel very, very strongly about. It’s not even about wage…That is not the case, the fight here is not the wages but for safe staffing,” Vivas said in an interview on The Final Word.
‘
The strike involves more than 7,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
‘
Vivas explained why medical staff are protesting at Mount Sinai Hospital: “What people have to understand is we have an anomalous 550 nursing vacancy, and that is considerable for a hospital. It is not because of COVID, I wanted to make that clear. We have been systemically understaffed by the hospital for the past six, seven years.”
‘
Vivas said nurses are overworked and have been sacrificing their breaks, as they “had no heart to leave” their patients.
‘
“We’re only supposed to handle two [patients] at a time. And that’s the legally safe standard for this country. We are constantly being tripled or quadrupled,” she added.
‘
Vivas also told CNN Philippines that the hospitals have offered a 19% increase in wages – “which they are likely to accept” – but their demands for better and safer working environment for the staff “have fallen on deaf ears.”
‘
The Philippine Consulate General in New York earlier expressed support for Filipino American nurses who joined the strike.
‘
