The city’s publicly run Health + Hospitals network spent at least $197 million to pay for temporary traveling nurses for three months in 2022 — an expenditure the state nurses’ union is voicing outrage over as it seeks higher pay and leverage in contract negotiations with Mayor Adams’ administration.
The $197 million cost, laid out in H+H documents obtained by the Daily News, covers traveling nurse pay from January to March of 2022.
How much traveling nurses cost for the entire year is not known, but the New York State Nurses Association estimates the total for 2022 is likely within the range of $500 million.
That outlay, the union says, proves the city’s public hospital network can afford to achieve pay parity with permanently employed nurses who work at private hospitals, many of whom secured their own contract earlier this year.
“They spent more on temporary travel nurses in three months than what it would cost to raise wages for public sector nurses to parity with private sector nurse pay for an entire year,” said NYSNA President Nancy Hagans.
Hagans said Health + Hospitals also revealed that it went over budget for traveling nurses by $125 million in the 2023 fiscal year. That spending comes as Adams has tasked city agencies to find savings through Programs to Eliminate the Gap, or PEGS, an austerity measure that’s led to criticism from the left.
Since the COVID pandemic began, many hospitals have had to rely on temporary traveling nurses to fill staffing shortages. Those nurses typically pull in more pay than permanent staff — and that’s become a major bone of contention for NYSNA and the nurses it represents.
The union points to nearly 2,000 permanent public-sector nurse vacancies the city has been at pains to fill because “pay is so much lower than the industry standard.” NYSNA argues that raising nurses’ pay is in the city’s best long-term interests.
“Instead of spending on temp travel nurses, who now comprise 25% of the Health + Hospitals nursing workforce, the city can raise the pay of staff nurses for a fraction of the cost, staff our hospitals safely, and ensure the quality and sustainability of our city’s essential public health system,” Hagans said. “It costs the city more to keep nurse pay so low.”
Health + Hospitals CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz has expressed sympathy for public sector nurses who make less than their private counterparts and conceded at a City Council hearing in March that the traveling nurses’ salaries have become a major drain on his agency’s budget. He also pointed out that a sizable chunk of that money goes to the agencies that place nurses in city hospitals.
But Katz, whose testimony was covered by Gothamist, has been noncommittal when it comes to publicly weighing in on what H+H nurses might specifically expect from contract negotiations.
“Even though people love our mission and the fact that we have the best mission in town, they’re not going to stay with us if there’s too large a difference in salary,” Katz said. “The good thing is we have a vehicle to solve this. The city is in active negotiations with NYSNA.”
Health + Hospitals did not immediately respond to a News inquiry about Hagan’s statement. A spokesman from Adams’ office said that the administration is “grateful for the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice our highly skilled nurses make every day.”
“We look forward to negotiating a new contract with NYSNA and welcome new opportunities to strengthen our partnership with NYSNA,” the spokesman added
The union, which is holding a rally at Foley Square on Wednesday, recently scored contract wins in its negotiations with several private hospitals in the city. But those negotiations carried with them the threat of going on strike, a threat that came to pass in January at two hospitals, Mount Sinai in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
Nurses who work for the city are public employees barred by state law from walking off the job — a legal reality that significantly diminishes their leverage.
Alizia McMyers, a veteran Harlem Hospital nurse, said that isn’t stopping her and her fellow nurses from advocating for outside support to put pressure on management.
She said that, on average, permanent nurses at H + H make $19,000 less than the traveling nurses they work with — and rectifying that disparity is worth the fight.
“What we do is, we get our communities involved,” she said. “We’re speaking to our community boards. We’re speaking at the town halls, at our public health care system …. We have actions that we’re planning to ensure that people know we are here fighting for health care for the city.”
Mayor Adams has not weighed in at length about the current negotiations with NYSNA, but if his support for the private sector nurses was any indication of his thinking, it may bode well for nurses at the city’s public hospitals.
During January’s walk out, Adams made it clear he backed the striking nurses.
“I’m a strong supporter of the nurses,” he said at the time. “The hospitals must do what’s right to ensure these nurses get the just compensation that they deserve. They are our heroes.”
