Biggest nurses strike in NYC history enters 6th day as workers fear for patients
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article erroneously cited Darla Joiner, a registered nurse at Mount Sinai Health System, as a union official.
New York’s largest nurses’ union has denied that the biggest nurses’ strike in the Big Apple’s history has turned deadly — after claims that an ICU patient had died as a result of the work stoppage.
“NYSNA is not claiming that any deaths directly derived from the strike,” a spokesperson for the New York State Nurses Association confirmed in an email to The Post.
“Union officials and NYSNA members do not have any direct knowledge of specific incidents or overall conditions inside of the hospitals because we are on the picket line,” the rep added.
The denial came after Darla Joiner, a striking nurse at the Mount Sinai Health System in East Harlem, claimed on Saturday that at least one death is attributable to reduced care because of the strike.
Katie Duke, a retired nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai who was also picketing on Saturday for NYSNA, told The Post she regularly hears from other hospital staffers that the strike has turned deadly, including a case of an ICU patient on a machine that helps circulate blood and support breathing.
“It is the highest level of life support for somebody who’s waiting on, like, a lung transplant,” Duke said. “So, the patient … wasn’t restrained and sedated properly,” and pulled the tube out of their neck.
“There are things happening inside, because this hospital is settling for staff who are not qualified to take care of patients, because they refuse to negotiate with the nurses and give them their contract,” she claimed.
A hospital official also strongly denied the claims of a strike-related death.
“This is completely false, defamatory, and we are pursuing legal action,” said spokesperson Lucia L. Lee, who refused to comment on the specific case, citing federal privacy laws. City Health Department officials did not immediately return a message.
Nurses at Mount Sinai, Montefiore Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian hit the picket lines Monday.
The strike, which involves nearly 15,000 NYC nurses, reached its sixth day on Saturday — and has even garnered the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Joiner claimed that since the strike, “our PCAs [patient care associates] are saying a lot more code blues are being called.”
“Code blue means somebody’s dead. It has a medical emergency. So, like, you have to start CPR and an emergency team comes. It’s normally doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, anesthesia, and respiratory. It’s literally just to try to resuscitate someone,” the registered nurse said.
“We’re hearing that more alerts are being called,” she added.
Joiner also claimed that the temporary nurses being used by the three hospitals to fill the void are overwhelmed and overworked.
The strike is the largest nurses’ walkout in city history and the longest in recent memory, far surpassing the 7,000 workers who picketed for three days in 2023.
But while hospital executives were caught off guard three years ago by the strike — which ended with favorable contracts for the nurses — they’ve taken an aggressive stance this go-round, after the NYSNA pushed for staffing and pay increases as well as to maintain health benefits.
