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Doctors at 4 NYC public hospitals may strike next week for better pay and benefits
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jan 3, 2025
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Zoirusha at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jan 3, 2025
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More than 1,000 doctors treating patients at public hospitals across New York City are planning to strike this month over stalled contract negotiations — a move their union, the Doctors Council SEIU, says would be the largest strike by attending physicians in city history.
“It took us a long time to get here,” said Dr. Frances Quee, president of the Doctors Council, who said negotiations over a new contract have been dragging on since August 2023.
Quee said the doctors are seeking better pay and benefits to help the public hospital system recruit and hold onto physicians at a time when patient volume — and wait times — have surged.
The doctors are threatening to strike at four facilities run by NYC Health and Hospitals: Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica, Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, North Central Bronx Hospital and South Brooklyn Health in Coney Island.
Although the doctors’ salaries are funded by the city, they are directly employed by private affiliates of NYC Health and Hospitals, including Mount Sinai Health System and the Physician Affiliate Group of New York. That means they are not subject to the city’s Taylor Law, which prohibits public employees from going on strike.
The doctors say they will walk off the job on Monday, Jan. 13, if talks with these employers and NYC Health and Hospitals don’t progress in the next week.
NYC Health and Hospitals did not respond to questions about specific contingency plans to keep patients safe if the strike moves forward.
“We value physicians who serve patients at NYC Health and Hospitals every day,” Chris Miller, a spokesperson for the public hospital system, said in a statement. “We continue to encourage all parties involved to work together at the bargaining table to prevent a strike and ensure that quality care remains uninterrupted for our patients.”
The Physician Affiliate Group of New York released a statement saying it was optimistic a resolution could be reached swiftly. The group’s board of directors added it had approached the negotiations with transparency, a “genuine commitment to addressing concerns,” and had presented an offer with “meaningful enhancements” for doctors and other healthcare providers.
Mount Sinai did not respond to a request for comment.
Quee said talks have been particularly fraught during this bargaining session and the Doctors Council has filed multiple complaints with the National Labor Relations Board about unfair labor practices that are still pending.
Dr. Gray Ballinger, a primary care doctor at Queens Hospital Center, said the idea of striking gained momentum among her colleagues in recent weeks after the hospital implemented a new policy that cut the time allotted for new patient visits in half.
“ There was an immediate public outcry among the physicians, saying, ‘We, we need to do whatever it takes at this point,’” Ballinger said.
NYC Health and Hospitals first released the system-wide directive to shorten visits over the summer, suggesting it would reduce the amount of time new patients had to wait to be seen. But Ballinger said the policy was only put in place at her facility more recently.
She added that, although she believes the doctors are “going on strike for our patients,” she is trying to take steps to minimize its immediate impact, including proactively refilling patient prescriptions ahead of the strike date.
The city struck a deal on a new contract with more than 500 unionized doctors who it directly employs, and who don’t have the option to strike, last month. But at the time, Quee said in a statement on that deal that the union remained “dissatisfied that critical areas regarding recruitment and retention were not adequately addressed.”
Doctors employed by private affiliates at other hospitals within the public system could still vote to authorize additional strikes, according to the Doctors Council.
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Health and Science
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Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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