NEW YORK - Thousands of nurses from 14 medical facilities across the city are holding a day of protest Wednesday.

They're gathering to call attention to what they say are horrendous conditions and understaffing in private hospitals.

Reports show that from January to December 2018, these nurses filed nearly 2,500 official complaints to highlight severe problems.

They work at facilities like New York Presbyterian Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Montefiore Medical Center. 

They say problems like understaffing hurts the patients that rely on them.

"As nurses, our patients are really sick and we don't have the time to not only take care of them properly but to do things like comfort a patient who is dying, or deal with the family with a family member with a terrible illness To give the TLC that people need, or even to medicate them properly and timely, and do the things that patients have a nurse to take care of them for," said New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez.

Wednesday's protest was an informational picket.

The nurses gathered on their break and while off the clock.

They say they are in contract negotiations fighting for safe patient ratios.

"We respect the right of NYSNA members to engage in informational picketing with proper notice," a spokesperson from the NYC Hospital Alliance said in a statment. "The reality is that the Union’s rigid, mandated staffing ratios would lower the quality of patient care. We support a patient-first approach to staffing that is built on tailored, flexible staffing plans — designed by experienced nurses— that have proven to best meet the individual and ever-changing needs of patients. We continue to bargain in good faith to reach agreement with nurses on an economic package that would increase salaries and preserve and fully fund health and pension benefits."