Early Monday morning, January 9th, over 7,000 nurses chose to go on strike against both Mount Sinai Medical Center and Montefiore Medical Center hospitals in New York City. The nurses argued that the staffing shortages were causing widespread burnout, limiting their ability to properly care for their patients. As well as working long hours in unsafe conditions without enough pay. The abruptness of the protest sent both hospitals into panic to try to relocate patients, divert ambulances and scale back all of their other services. With the loss of over 7,000 nurses the hospitals tried desperately to bring in more staff temporarily to be able to continue operations. They even needed to place doctors into service to fill the nursing shortages. Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compounded wage increase the nurses still planned to leave and protest their belief that their working conditions were in need of change.

A transplant nurse, Warren Urquhart, at Mount Sinai expresses to CNN Monday morning his reasons for why he is on strike, “We’ve been fighting for working under safer conditions. We do the best we can every day. There’s something wrong inside the hospital. That’s why we’re outside the hospital.” The nurses explain how they feel stretched thin with all of their responsibilities that oftentimes go unnoticed. Nurses say that the ratio has gone from one nurse for every four patients to one for every six which causes lots of safety issues for the patients.

Even with the unions offered negotiations the strikes at Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospital still have no planned end date.