More than 150 trainee doctors went on strike Monday at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, the first physician strike at a New York City hospital in more than 30 years.
Chief among their grievances is the fact that they are often paid less to work in a public hospital in Queens, where they care for poor patients, than their counterparts who are paid in wealthier institutions in Manhattan.
Although the strike is relatively small and is not expected to result in major disruptions in care, it is heavy on symbolism. About three years ago, Elmhurst was one of the first hospitals in the United States to be overwhelmed by Covid-19.
Images of panicked, gasping patients, chest compressions and refrigerated morgue trucks — scenes one Elmhurst doctor described as “apocalyptic” — served as a warning to the rest of the country.
Now the curious young doctors say that the experience of the pandemic has inspired activism and organizing – and a growing willingness to challenge the relatively low salaries that resident doctors receive, as training doctors are called, for working long and grueling hours.
Residents of the city’s public hospitals have always been reluctant to rock the boat in the past. Many were born and educated abroad and are in the United States with a visa.
“As international residents, we are always grateful – we feel very lucky to be here,” said Dr. Sarah Hafuth, a leader of resident doctors, who is from Canada.
He added: “The pandemic was an eye-opener. Doctors began to question our worth and ask, ‘Are we getting the support we need, given our condition?’
At Elmhurst, residents had more difficulty getting risk-adjusted compensation early in the pandemic than at some Manhattan hospitals, which angered many. Hazard pay remains one of the issues driving the strike, a union delegate, a fourth-year psychiatry resident, Dr. Tanathun Kajornsakchai, said.
“It is very empowering for all of us to fight for the same cause, fight for equity, and fight for parity,” said Dr. Kajornsakchai in a telephone interview Monday from the picket line.
Dr. Kajornsakchai is already working at Elmhurst in 2020, even though most of his fellow strikers on the picket line are still in medical school then.
One of the signs on the picket line referred to 7 p.m. every night – a brief tradition when New Yorkers opened their windows to clap and clap pots and pans to express thanks to the frontline workers.
“Elmhurst is the epicenter of Covid,” the sign read. “Now it’s 7 o’clock in the evening and we’re clapping.”
Doctor strikes are rare in the United States. The last time in New York City, according to the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union that organized this week’s strike, was in 1990 when doctors at a Bronx hospital went on strike for nine days. They won a pay rise and stricter enforcement of rules against working more than 12 hours straight.
Although the striking doctors worked at Elmhurst, they worked at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan.
Doctors at most of New York’s 11 public hospitals are affiliated with major Manhattan hospitals and medical schools, the result of long-standing contracts between the city’s public hospital system and leading medical institutions. in the city.
That means the public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, is largely a bystander in the negotiations. The system and Mount Sinai said they are taking steps to minimize disruptions to patient care.
Dr. I. Michael Leitman, the dean of graduate medical education at Mount Sinai, said some Mount Sinai residents signed up to work the Elmhurst shift during the strike.
Among the complaints of Elmhurst residents is that their counterparts who work at Mount Sinai’s main hospital, on East 98th Street, do more.
Dr. Hafuth said first-year residents at Elmhurst make about $68,000 a year, while residents who work at Mount Sinai’s main campus make about $75,000.
“Our patient load is the same,” he said. “We see the same medical pathologies, the same complexity. So we’re at a point where we’re very frustrated as to why Mount Sinai is willing to pay Upper East Side residents more than us.
A Mount Sinai spokeswoman, Lucia Lee, said in a statement that the health system is “committed to working toward a fair and reasonable resolution that is in the best interest of our Elmhurst residents as also for the Mount Sinai Health System.”
The strike began at 7 a.m. on Monday, drawing resident doctors from the departments of internal medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry. The organizers called for the strike to last five days and they estimated that more than 150 resident physicians participated.
This comes after more than 10 months of contract negotiations between Mount Sinai and the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union that represents resident doctors.
Ms. Lee said Mount Sinai’s latest offer would have paid Elmhurst residents the same as their Mount Sinai counterparts. But Elmhurst residents reject that attitude, saying the offer doesn’t put them on the same level. The offer provides for an increase between 5 and 7 percent a year, for three years.
