Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Nearly 300 resident physicians and fellows employed by the MediSys Health Network at Jamaica and Flushing Hospital reached a tentative contract agreement at midnight on May 15, averting what would have been the first doctors’ strike in over 30 years in New York City.
We Won – MediSys resident doctors strike a deal just hours before going on strike in NYC!https://t.co/RRYoNa4aBj
— CIR/SEIU (@cirseiu) May 15, 2023
The doctors are represented by The Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), the largest house staff union in the United States.
The union had submitted a notice for a three-day strike on May 1. A week later, they provided their employer with a second notice for a two-day ULP strike, for a total of what would have been a five-day strike.
“This agreement is one that will ensure that our class and future generations of resident doctors at MediSys are protected in the event of a public health emergency while prioritizing both the community’s health care needs and our training,” said Dr. Neha Ravi, a first-year family medicine resident at Jamaica Hospital.
Saying the system finally bargained in good faith, the physicians won virtually unheard-of patient care proposals that focused on issues such as adequate resources to limit patient loads and enforceable processes to address out-of-title work.
The deal includes 18% salary increases over three years — the wage pattern recently set by NYSNA nurses who went on strike earlier this year — along with wins on the physicians’ core demands on patient loads and out-of-title work.
“Residency training hasn’t changed very much in the last 100 years. Unfortunately, out-of-title work has been a reality that most residents expect in our hierarchical academic medicine environments, but it’s time for a new normal in health care. One where hospitals prioritize patients by prioritizing its workers,” said Dr. Uchenna…
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