Doctors strike at Elmhurst Hospital

Resident doctors at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens began a strike outside the hospital on Monday, the first doctor’s strike the five boroughs have seen in 33-years. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

Resident doctors working at Elmhurst Hospital walked out of their jobs early Monday morning, starting the first strike undertaken by New York City physicians in a generation.

Around 130 of the resident doctors and interns at Elmhurst Hospital, once the epicenter of the city’s fight against the COVID pandemic, began their strike outside the hospital on Monday morning as they fight for pay parity with other residents doing the same job and working for the same employer in Manhattan. Although they work at Elmhurst, a public hospital under New York City Health + Hospitals, residents are employed by Mount Sinai and the Icahn School of Medicine.

It is the first time doctors in the city have gone on strike in 33 years.

“This strike, as historic as it is, should not be happening,” said psychiatry resident, Dr. Sarah Hafuth on Monday. “We shouldn't have to take time off work to fight for the minimum we need in order to get by.”

Around 70 residents walked the picket line outside the hospital on Monday, the first morning of a planned five-day strike against Mount Sinai.

Pay parity is the goal for the residents, many of whom are freshly graduated medical students, and many of whom worked on immigration visas at a hospital now synonymous with the horrors of the COVID pandemic.

Specifically, they are seeking pay and benefits on par with their resident counterparts on the Upper East Side campus of Mount Sinai, who make $7,000 more per year than they do.

“We shouldn't have to beg Mount Sinai for the same benefits and support that resident doctors in wealthier communities have,” said Hafuth. “Mount Sinai, it is time to bargain in good faith.”

The doctors argue that the reason for the disparity is the nature of the communities they work in – the diverse, mainly immigrant neighborhoods Elmhurst serves, versus the more wealthy streets of upper Manhattan.

Dr. Sarah Hafuth,a psychiatry resident, is among the doctors striking at Elmhurst Hospital. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

“It feels fundamentally like Mount Sinai is saying that this community does not matter, like us Elmhurst residents do not matter,” said Dr. Samkit Jain. “The community is important and our patients deserve the very best and health care everyone does. We won't accept anything less than what we deserve.”

“This is about saying that Elmhurst and Jackson Heights are just as important as the Upper East Side,” he added.

They also argue that the wage difference is intentional. Because the residents at Mount Sinai in Manhattan are non-union, the disparity is meant to deter doctors from joining the union, the residents claim.

“Mount Sinai knows exactly what they are doing,” said ​Dr. Tanathun Kajornsakchai. “Pitting workers against each other by offering better salaries and benefits to non-union colleagues. This is the oldest trick in the book, and we will not stand for it.”

The residents have been without a contract for more than a year, and say that Mount Sinai had negotiated in bad faith.

“Mount Sinai has refused to engage with our proposals and meaningfully delayed bargaining for four months, and refused to furnish information requested by our unions as they are required to do,” said Kajornsakchai. “This is bad faith bargaining. And it is yet another union busting tactic used by mega corporations all around the country, from Amazon, to Starbucks and now Mount Sinai.”

In response, Mount Sinai has maintained that they are working for a resolution.

“We are committed to working towards an equitable and reasonable resolution that is in the best interest for both our residents at Elmhurst as well as for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and are working closely with partners at Elmhurst Hospital to ensure the same quality and level of care and services that the local community expects and deserves are not affected by the strike,” Lucia Lee, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai, said in a statement.

Early in the morning on Monday, the union filed its fourth unfair labor practice complaint against Mount Sinai after police told the doctors they had to move away from the hospital, even though they were picketing on public property and gave the hospital and NYPD the legal notifications.

“It's disheartening to see that that happened this morning, even though we gave sufficient notice that we were planning to do this,” said Jain.

The strike continued across the street, before moving back to where it originally began without issue.

On Monday, resident doctors from a Mount Sinai Hospital in Morningside in Manhattan, also announced they passed a strike authorization, the third group of medical professionals to do so in the last month, and the fourth so far this year.

“The nurses [who went on strike in January] really sort of showed us that there's a possibility in terms of being able to ask for what we deserve,” Hafuth told the Eagle. “They have really sort of set the precedent for us, and we support them, and we saw that possibility.”

The residents were joined on Monday by members of the nurses union, as well as other union members and elected officials, like Councilmembers Jennifer Guiterrez and Carmen De La Rosa and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.

“We remember the days of this pandemic early on, lives lost and the communities impacted,” said Richards. “It was you who were on the front lines. It's not good enough for Mount Sinai and others to bang pots and pans at the height of the pandemic, but then not give you your pay parity and your just due as the city opens up.”

Resident doctors striking at Elmhurst Hospital were joined by other unions, as well as elected officials, including Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, on the first day of their strike against Mount Sinai. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

“It was you that allowed this city to open up,” he added. “Make no mistake that I'm reminded of what you did in this building behind me.”

Resident doctors said on Monday that they would have preferred to avoid a strike and had hoped an agreement with Mount Sinai would have been reached before then.

“We're still pretty frustrated,” said Hafuth. “I think we've been doing some negotiations, and they still haven't been meeting us to where we'd like to be met.”

Hafuth says that if an agreement is still not met by the time the five-day strike is up, they will have to consider next steps. However, she added that she was “hopeful” an agreement would be reached by then.

According to the union, 130 doctors, out of the 170 employed at Elmhurst, honored the strike, and only a few actually reported to work.

NYC Health + Hospitals told the Eagle that the residents work in the Behavioral Health, Medicine and Pediatric units, which were the only three units affected by the strike.

They said that staff at Elmhurst has taken on extra shifts, and have pulled clinicians from other NYC Health + Hospitals facilities to fill the gaps. Mount Sinai has also sent assistance, they said.

​​“Our resident physicians play a critical role in patient care,” said a spokesperson. “While we hope they reach an agreement to end the strike, we are fully prepared and have planned ahead to provide the necessary staff coverage.”

“Access to care for the community is our top priority,” the spokesperson added. “Our hospital and outpatient services remain open without interruption. Patients can keep their appointments, and we will continue to provide the compassionate, high quality of care they have come to expect from our team.”