The nurses striking in New York City aren’t doing anything extreme. They’re doing what nurses everywhere end up doing when the system refuses to listen. They’re standing up and saying conditions are unsafe, the workload is crushing, and pretending otherwise is getting people hurt.
In January 2026, roughly fifteen thousand NYC nurses walked off the job across major hospital systems including Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork Presbyterian. Their demands were basic and overdue: safer nurse to patient ratios, wages that reflect the workload and cost of living, benefits that haven’t been slowly stripped away, and real protections from workplace violence. Hospital executives responded the same way they always do, claiming the demands were unrealistic and financially impossible.
Colorado nurses hear that line all the time.
Hospitals across Colorado insist margins are thin and resources are limited, yet the numbers tell a very different story. Denver area hospitals brought in nearly one point three billion dollars in profit in 2024. That money didn’t disappear. It just didn’t show up on the floor as staffing, retention pay, or safer ratios.
That outcome didn’t happen by accident.
Nurses in Colorado are routinely asked to take more patients than is safe, skip breaks, and absorb the emotional fallout of a system running permanently short. At the same time, executive compensation keeps climbing. The CEO of HCA Healthcare made nearly twenty four million dollars in a single year. HCA operates the HealthONE network throughout the Denver metro. When a system can afford that level of executive pay, claims of being unable to fund safe staffing ring hollow.
HealthONE hospitals have repeatedly appeared in public reporting and legal actions involving missed breaks and staffing concerns. UCHealth workers have spoken openly about understaffing and burnout while organizing for a stronger voice. Nurses at CommonSpirit facilities in Colorado have had to unionize just to secure baseline protections around staffing and retention, even as top leadership compensation remains measured in the millions.
Colorado lawmakers often point to the nurse staffing committee law as evidence that the problem is being addressed. Committees are better than nothing, but they don’t guarantee safety. Without enforcement or consequences, hospitals can ignore staffing plans whenever it suits the budget. Nurses still show up knowing they’ll be stretched too thin, and they’re still the ones left holding the blame when something goes wrong.
Running units short saves money in the short term. Turnover becomes manageable when new grads are treated as replaceable. Travelers become a band aid instead of a solution. Executives stay insulated while bedside staff carry the moral injury of trying to keep patients safe in an unsafe system.
That same pattern is what pushed NYC nurses to strike. They reached the point where being professional and patient stopped producing results. Colorado nurses are dealing with the same pressures, just spread across different logos and hospital campuses.
Patients feel this, whether hospitals admit it or not. Overworked nurses miss meals, delay care, and make impossible judgment calls because there simply aren’t enough hands. Nurses go home exhausted, angry, and burned out, knowing they barely kept things from falling apart.
Hospitals that report massive profits can afford safe staffing. Systems that pay executives millions can afford to retain experienced nurses. If patient safety were treated as a real priority instead of a talking point, nurses wouldn’t have to threaten strikes just to be heard.
New York nurses are forcing the issue into the open. Colorado doesn’t need to wait for a similar breaking point to start taking nurses seriously. The warning signs are already here, and pretending otherwise only guarantees more harm down the line.