PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Dr. Rona Ray, Vice Chair of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) NY
2:38:46
ยท
4 min
Dr. Rona Ray, Vice Chair of PNHP NY, testified in support of public hospital doctors planning to strike for a fair contract. She shared her personal experience as a former doctor at Elmhurst Hospital and outlined five key reasons for supporting the strike, including the need for parental leave, job security, and addressing healthcare segregation.
- Dr. Ray was laid off when 37 weeks pregnant and faced issues with maternity leave and unemployment benefits
- She advocated for a single master contract across all 11 H+H hospitals to improve working conditions and patient care
- Dr. Ray questioned the benefit of subcontractors like Mount Sinai and PAGNY in the public hospital system
- She emphasized the importance of addressing healthcare segregation and improving job quality for immigrants and people of color in the H+H workforce
- Dr. Ray connected the doctors' strike to broader issues of corporate influence in healthcare and called for passing the New York Health Act
Dr. Rona Ray
2:38:46
Hi.
2:38:46
Thank you.
2:38:48
My name is Runa Ray.
2:38:49
I'm here to support the public hospital doctors who are planning to strike for a fair contract.
2:38:54
I would have been one of those doctors voting to strike.
2:38:57
I was a doctor employed by Mount Sinai at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens for 5 years between 2019 and 2024, just a few months ago.
2:39:04
I moved to Jackson Heights in order to be a doctor for the community I live in and feel a connection to.
2:39:09
Because of our shared experiences of immigration and language, I speak Spanish and Bengali.
2:39:14
But recently, during the contract negotiations that I was involved in, I was given notice of layoff when I was 37 weeks pregnant.
2:39:22
Doctors are rarely laid off.
2:39:23
Sinai HR, told me they hadn't done it in 25 years.
2:39:27
After I gave birth, they spent months harassing me during my maternity leave, trying to take my maternity leave time, my state paid family leave, and my unemployment benefits.
2:39:37
So the first reason I'm, here supporting the doctors need to strike is because doctors deserve parental leave in their contract and job security after parental leave.
2:39:46
Sinai has ignored our request for this at the bargaining table.
2:39:49
I learned that directly employed city hospital employees are insured up to 4 years of unpaid leave after the birth of a child.
2:39:55
Yet, because I worked for Sinai, I didn't have this protection.
2:39:58
And a few months after I gave birth, my job was advertised, though it had been degraded to a per diem job with no benefits.
2:40:04
I applied for the job twice.
2:40:06
Elmhurst recommended me for the position, and I never heard back.
2:40:09
My job should have simply been transferred, to the virtual express care service at PAGNY from the express care clinic at Elmhurst Sinai when it was closed.
2:40:18
So the second reason I'm here supporting doctors need to strike is because doctors at h and h deserve a single master contract across all 11 hospitals.
2:40:26
With parity in positions between hospitals, it would make transfers, for example, in a public health crisis like COVID easier and decrease reliance on expensive temporary physician labor.
2:40:37
The third reason I'm here supporting the doctors need to strike is to ask what benefit these subcontractors, Sinai and PAGNY, bring patients and health care workers.
2:40:45
In my case, they just created a confusing bureaucracy and a cover to get rid of a worker taking a maternity leave that was considered a bothersome expense, and they allowed H and H to turn a blind eye to, Sinai's unsavory and infamously racist and sexist employment practices.
2:41:02
When I spoke with doctor Katz last July, he told me that I didn't work for him.
2:41:06
It was ironic because he he had just published an article in the, Journal of the American Medical Association a week prior titled Administrative Harm, Common and Sometimes Preventable.
2:41:18
So the 4th reason I'm here supporting doctors need to strike is because we need to take substantive steps toward ending healthcare segregation.
2:41:25
The New York City Commissioner of Health, Mary Bassett, in 2021, declared racism a public health crisis.
2:41:32
And DOH research has shown that structural racism tragically affected health out health outcomes in the COVID pandemic.
2:41:39
We can create better public sector physician jobs which will set the tone for better jobs and patient care for immigrants for the immigrants and people of color who make us make up a significant portion of the h and h workforce and patient population.
2:41:51
The 5th and final reason I'm supporting the doctor's need to strike is as the vice chair of physicians for a national health program here in New York City, I recognize that doctors collective action represents the most powerful challenge to the corporate race to the bottom in health care.
2:42:06
The callous way I was treated individually was no different from how my colleagues and I were treated sorry, were ignored and disrespected at the bargaining table by Sinai.
2:42:14
As we saw last month in the outpouring of emotion from the public so far.
2:42:18
After last month's tragic murder of an insurance executive, millions of people want to eliminate corporate greed from the practice of health care.
2:42:26
Here in one of the last remaining public hospital systems in the US, which has a rare unionized physician workforce, we can begin to do that.
2:42:34
Public hospital doctors need a fair and excellent contract, and we also need to pass the New York Health Act at the state level to eliminate the inequality and racist 2 tier healthcare system that the private insurance industry creates.
Mercedes Narcisse
2:42:47
Thank you for your time.