Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian have won nearly $400,000 in an arbitration over “chronic understaffing” in a pediatric intensive care unit, the New York State Nurses Association said Tuesday.

According to a union news release, an arbitrator found that the hospital violated staffing rules in the nurses’ contracts 614 times between Jan. 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024, in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Washington Heights.

The arbitrator awarded $399,829 to nurses who worked while the unit was understaffed, the union said.

The union said nurses caring for critically ill infants tracked and documented staffing levels for a year and a half. After multiple days of hearings, the arbitrator concluded the hospital failed to hire and keep enough nurses to safely staff the unit, according to the union.

This is the third time arbitrators have awarded relief to nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian, the union said. In total, the union said nurses have been awarded about $675,000 and 141 extra vacation days over staffing violations at three different units.

NYSNA said the hospital has appealed all awards in federal court, and nurses have yet to receive any payments.

NY1 has reached out to NewYork-Presbyterian for comment.

The ruling comes as more than 4,200 NewYork-Presbyterian nurses continue their strike, now in its sixth week. Nurses at Mount Sinai and Montefiore returned to work this past weekend after approving new contracts.

“While the financial remedies are nice, what we really want is more nurses and a contract that makes it harder for the hospital to avoid taking accountability. That’s why we’re on strike. It shouldn’t take years to get an acknowledgement of the conditions we’ve worked under when NYP could just do the right thing and safely staff the hospital,” Sophie Boland, a nurse at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, said in a statement Tuesday.

“NYP is one of the richest hospitals in the state. We know they can afford to safely staff their hospitals, yet they choose not to. Nurses are out on the picket line because they refuse to compromise on safe patient care,” NYSNA president Nancy Hagans added in her own statement. “Arbitrators and judges have consistently ruled in nurses’ favor, despite the hospital making every attempt to denigrate nurses publicly. We will continue to fight against NYP until they agree to a contract that patients and nurses deserve.”

The union said nurses rejected a tentative contract presented by mediators because it did not adequately address staffing issues.

There is no timeline for when negotiations will resume.