7th Day Of NYC Nurses Strike Highlights Ongoing Healthcare Problems
Source: Forbes
By Bruce Y. Lee, Senior Contributor. Bruce Y. Lee, M.D., MBA,
Jan 18, 2026, 07:19am EST UPDATED Jan 18, 2026, 07:43am EST
The largest nurses strike in New York City history reached its seventh day on Sunday with no clear end in sight. And even if this strike at some point gets resolved, it should be yet another striking reminder that the U.S. healthcare system is like the title of that 2018 song from lovelytheband: “Broken.” A broken healthcare system, in turn, is the opposite of a lovely thing for patients and the rest of society.
NYC Nurses Strike Began On Monday
The NYC nurses strike struck on January 12, when around 15,000 nurses essentially said “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” about their current pay and working conditions and walked off their job at hospitals within the Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian systems. Since then the New York State Nurses Association—the union representing the nurses—has been engaging in negotiations with hospital management. The union has been arguing for pay increases and increased measures to protect the safety of nurses. After talks at the beginning of this past week stalled like a car made out of sausage, a federal mediator joined the mix.
But so far, there are no signs that they are anywhere close to any agreement. In a statement, Angela Karafazli, a NewYork-Presbyterian spokeswoman, described the union’s proposals as “unreasonable.” Meanwhile, the New York State Nurses Association deemed the progress as “very little” and indicated that it “put forward a revised set of proposals that hospital executives rejected without offering a counter proposal.”
Kaiser Permanente Nurses Strike Planned
That’s not the only striking news in the U.S. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals have already delivered a 10-day notice that over 31,000 nurses and other health care professionals at Kaiser Permanente intend to go on strike on Monday, January 26. Yep, on what also happens to be National Peanut Brittle Day, expect nurses at nearly 20 hospitals and over 200 clinics in the Kaiser system throughout California and Hawaii to walk off their jobs. The union has been arguing that Kaiser has billions of dollars in financial reserves and investments at Kaiser, yet continue to understaff its healthcare facilities and pile increasing workloads onto healthcare professionals while not providing wages that have kept pace with rising costs of housing, food, and health care.
Nurses at Mount Sinai West in New York City are protesting unsafe working conditions, citing chronic understaffing and overwhelming patient loads that prevent them from delivering adequate care. (Photo by: Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Less
UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2026/01/18/7th-day-of-nyc-nurses-strike-highlights-ongoing-healthcare-problems/
= new reply since forum marked as read
