The New York nurses replaced by AI: 'It should concern every patient who cares about quality of care' [View all]

Last edited Mon Jul 13, 2026, 11:11 AM - Edit history (2)

Source: Guardian

After nearly four decades in her job, Shuler is one of 12 nurses who was laid off Sunday after being replaced with AI-powered software, according to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), which represents nurses at the hospital.

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"NNU nurses, like the nurses at Montefiore, have been on the frontlines of fighting hospital employers' efforts to force unregulated and untested AI into patient care settings," said Jamie Brown, a registered nurse and president of NNU. "Nurses know from experience that hospital employers will find any opportunity to cut costs and cut corners on patient care and nurse staffing."

The layoffs at Montefiore come in the wake of a massive nurses strike across several hospitals in New York City in January 2026. The new union contracts written after the strikes included safeguards against AI.

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"We are outraged about these layoffs because these dedicated nurses are being replaced by AI," said Kalathil in a statement. "This is a violation of the contract that we recently won by going on strike. It should also concern every practitioner and patient who cares about the future of healthcare and the quality of care they receive."

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/13/nurses-new-york-ai

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More at the link. No paywall.

EDITING to recommend that everyone read the COMPLETE article, since it isn't particularly long, and isn't paywalled.

And I probably need to add some other background here.

Registered nurses' jobs can be clinical or non-clinical, but the expertise of a nursing degree is still required for both. Clinical nurses provide direct medical care to patients. Non-clinical nurses do work that is more administrative, but again, a nursing degree is still required for expertise. I'd guess - and this is strictly a guess - that plenty of nurses have done both, and in small clinics and hospitals might do both regularly.

The hospital that laid off these nurses, replacing them with AI, is arguing that this was permissible because it was a nonclinical program involving paperwork.

The union says this was a violation of its most recent contract. And I'd bet that it was, since I doubt their negotiators would have accepted language allowing non-clinical nurses to be fired just because their jobs include some paperwork. Doctors do paperwork as well.

The hospital is probably hoping to get away with this, without too much of a backlash, if the public can be convinced non-clinical nurses, whose jobs have always required expertise and degrees in nursing, can be replaced by AI without affecting patient care.