Kingston hospital’s nurses are fuming at the Westchester Medical Group (WMG).

"No more profits before patients," said Diane Fitzgerald, a nurse at the HealthAlliance Hospital. "No more profits before nursing."

More than 40 fellow hospital staff members were laid off by the corporation that runs HealthAlliance and the hospital. Nurses there say many of those who were laid off were highly experienced leaders.

“We’ve lost an important resource on the floor," said Lawrence Clayton, also a nurse at Kingston hospital. "We’ve lost some of the most experienced and dedicated and caring nurses that we have.”

That's why county leaders and leaders of SEIU 1199 and New York State Nurse's Association took their grievances public on Wednesday afternoon. The nurses say with the staff let go, it's tougher for them to do their jobs.

“All the other nurses on the floor were swamped and there was no one to pass out dinner trays, so none of our patients got dinner last night," Clayton said. "Does your family like that? Does your grandma deserve that? I don’t think so."

In a statement, a spokesperson for HealthAlliance says that the layoffs were the result of "position redundancies," as the two hospitals are eventually consolidating into one, and after these changes, services are "continuing at current levels with no reduction in bedside nursing positions."

Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, who was already calling for the hospital to bring its inpatient mental health beds back, is doubling down.

Ryan says the county will ask the state to stop construction on WMG's $90 million Kingston hospital on Mary's Avenue, if the changes continue.

“Because that entire building was premised on the promise that the behavioral health beds would be a part of it," Ryan said. "So they are in violation of that certificate of need, and they should not move that forward until they honor that promise."