At Bronx’s Montefiore, doctors want a new contract
The Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center was the scene of a rally by its resident physicians on Wednesday, July 10. The center’s doctors, members of the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU), say they want a fair contract but have not been able to negotiate one with management.
Residents began negotiating a new contract last August but say their union has not been able to come to an agreement with management.
Twelve hundred of Montefiore’s residents voted to become part of CIR/SEIU in February 2023. They are fighting for cost-of-living raises, housing benefits, adequate staffing, childcare allowances, and the establishment of a patient-care trust fund so that equipment, educational materials, and community health programs for its Bronx-based patients can be financed.
For its part, “Montefiore is deeply engaged in our current conversations with the Committee of Interns and Residents and we are committed to creating an agreement that honors the hard work of our house officers in a manner that is sustainable going forward,” the hospital center said in a prepared statement.
But Montefiore appears to be more interested in widening its customer base with potential patients from outside of the Bronx, said Dr. John McCarthy, a Montefiore resident physician in social pediatrics: “I see them on TV. I see them in Hudson Yards. I see their billboards out by a town called Sugarloaf––which is exactly as far away from here as it sounds. And we’re just moving into these wealthier, whiter communities with higher rates of private insurance.
“We see increases in advertising budgets, which [have] quadrupled over the course of like five years. We’ve seen CEO pay go up some 50% and residents didn’t even get a standard raise last year. And throughout all this expansion into wealthier communities, we have seen the closure and the restriction of care services provided within the Bronx …”
CIR/SEIU say because of understaffing, Montefiore residents are working 80 hours a week and sometimes treating patients in the hallways.
Dr. Clara Bertozzi told the rally: “We deserve financial resources to advance our goals for patient care. And we deserve an administration that will not outright dismiss our proposal for a strong commitment to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion among our trainees and faculty.
“…What my colleagues and I know is that our patients feel more empowered and receive better care from providers who they feel represented by and I have colleagues who can speak to their patients in Spanish, and French, and Bengali, and Wolof, and Hindi, and Haitian Creole, and Mandarin, and Arabic. I have colleagues who [were] born at Weiler Hospital, and who grew up right here in the Bronx.”
The hospital center won’t agree to the establishment of a patient care fund, another point that rankles union members
“I mean, how do you deny a patient care fund to a group of doctors and all they want to do is provide better care for our patients who are marginalized, who are people of color, who are people without insurance, who are people who are underinsured, who are people on Medicaid, people on Medicare, people with zip codes with the worst health statistics in the state,” asked Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, president of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) which supports the Montefiore residents. “And yet you’re opening up clinics in Hudson Yards where there’s no need for that. You’re opening up other hospitals elsewhere outside of the state, other lucrative practices. But what happens to the patients who are your backbone, the patients who are your community here in the Bronx? Those patients are neglected.”
CIR/SEIU say the doctors’ next bargaining session with Montefiore will take place within two weeks.
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