New York City Health + Hospitals is preparing for nearly 1,000 doctors to potentially strike in the coming weeks as they negotiate a new contract, while hospital leaders hope arbitration will take a walkout off the table.
Although there is not a current active strike notice, the public hospital system is making tentative plans to cancel elective surgeries and outpatient visits if doctors from at least four public hospitals move forward with a plan to strike in the next few weeks, Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of H+H, said in a City Council hearing on Friday.
Katz is hopeful that the planned strike won’t happen, after the physicians and their employers agreed to come back to the negotiating table.
Doctors who work at Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital, South Brooklyn Health and Queens Hospital announced a potential strike earlier this month, saying their employers failed to provide adequate compensation and benefits after 15 months of negotiations. Mayor Eric Adams urged the union and their employers to avoid a strike and come back to the negotiating table with a mediator, prompting the union to postpone their strike until at least Jan. 21.
The union does not plan to file another strike notice for Jan. 21 at this time, according to Dr. Frances Quee, president of Doctors Council SEIU.
“We are pleased with the progress that we’ve made up to this point with the help of our mediator, and we believe we have made strides toward reaching an agreement,” Quee said. She said the parties are planning to go back to the bargaining table on Sunday, but that they reserve their right to file a new 10-day strike notice if talks fall apart in the coming days.
The physicians have been pushing their employer to boost pay and benefits, as they say that lower wages compared to other safety-net hospitals in New York has fueled high rates of turnover and a crisis of understaffing across the public hospital system. Average compensation for an H+H doctor is $269,000 a year, but there is a broad salary range based on physicians’ specialty, according to Katz.
Katz said that the public hospital system recognizes physicians’ right to strike, but said a walkout would not solve doctors’ challenges around pay and understaffing.
“Whether a strike is an hour, a day, a week, you still have all the same issues,” Katz said. “I don’t see how a strike will change any of the issues.”
