(NEW YORK CITY) - Nearly 2,800 New York City Health + Hospitals Doctors are seeking a contract that will provide salaries that allow the Public Hospital System to retain Physicians.

Doctors, their Union - the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) Doctors Council, and Elected Officials rallied in the heat outside of South Brooklyn Health to demand a fair deal.

“We’ve been through Sandy, we have been through Covid. But this time it’s not a natural disaster - it’s a man-made disaster,” Mamta Purohit, a Doctor in the Hospital’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, said of short-staffing at the facility.

The Union is negotiating multiple contracts on behalf of NYC H+H Doctors.

In addition to NYC H+H, some of the Doctors have other employers, including the Physician Affiliate Group of New York, NYU Langone and Mount Sinai, with which the Union is also bargaining.

Devon Gilliams, who is on the Union’s Bargaining Committee, explained all of the Doctors at the South Brooklyn Facility are covered under the same contract, which expired last August.

Although negotiations began early last Fall, an agreement remains elusive, she said.

“We are not close to getting to an agreement that would satisfy the Bargaining Committee and the attending Physicians we represent,” Gilliams said.

She said doctors at South Brooklyn Health earned less than Doctors at other H+H hospitals.

“We need to try to standardize our contract across the system so that there is not this issue where Doctors in the system are being poached from other facilities in the system, which happens right now,” she told The Chief following the rally.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Story, Go To: Retention in critical condition, city's public hospital medics say - The Chief (thechiefleader.com)