A few days following the first case of COVID-19 in New Yorkin the darkest moments of 2020, spokesmen for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSA) He feared that neither public nor private hospitals had enough health personnel to deal with a major emergency. Two years later, time not only proved them right, but today they can show that they won, at least, small battles to improve their working conditions.
“For the first time in years we are not fighting cuts in the health care budget. Governor’s Proposals Kathy Hochul aim to increase the health care workforce in a 20% over the next five years”, assured Pat Kane, NYSA leader, it’s a statement.
For decades, this union has complained regarding the limited number of nursing professionals in health centers, but the painful “nightmare” of the pandemic and the well-known saturation of emergency roomswas a very powerful argument for a more serious look at this sector.
In addition, the public health crisis has lifted the veil on a reality: they do not always work with adequate biosafety protections.
For example, when New York went into emergency in 2020 due to the “new virus”, 65% of nurses reported that at the beginning of the crisis, they were forced to refuse N95 masks.
More nurses needed
The rigor of the pandemic brought nurses to the streets, to demand not only protections, but also better wages and better health insurance, for those who they are a fundamental arm in hospital services and caring for children and the elderly.
Although this year of post-pandemic recovery they celebrate as a union “some lights” in the state budget, the leaders of NYSA consider that the “chronic evil” of staff shortage is far from relieved.
“To meet its 2023 Executive Budget goals of increasing health care by 20% and addressing racial and social disparities in the health care system, the State must substantially increase the labor force of nurses today,” insists Kane.
According to some NYSNA balance sheets, it is still necessary to increase recruitment, improve salary policies to retain these essential workers and Check the working conditions.
In this regard, Governor Kathy Hochul confirmed a historic multi-year healthcare investment of $20 billionin the fiscal year 2023 budget, which includes a special bonus for healthcare workers for “balance” low wages.
The budget will be divided into several different categories, with a focus point on creating better conditions for this essential workforce.
However, these steps do not necessarily translate into immediate structural changes. This is how it is summed up by Colombian nurse, Nancy Castañowho has worked for 18 years in a hospital in Queens: “the pandemic revealed that we were unprotected, that New York needs us with more protections, that we are very few and that they have to consider hiring more health professionals! it is enough!”.
In the specific case of the Big Apple, the number of nurses it has decreased to lower levels than those observed before the pandemic.
In upstate New York, vacancy rate in hospitals it is 13.5%, double what it was before the pandemic, he told local media Gary Fitzgerald, President and CEO by Iroquois Healthcare Association, a medical care organization.
On the other hand, the reasoning Teresita Alvarado, a Dominican nurse from the Bronx It is also very simple: “there are many types of nurses, those who are not unionized, those from public hospitals that have different contracts. They are very different realities. A couple of compañeras left when they were ordered to get vaccinated.Others looking for better income”.
Nurses on the hospital endowment committee
Since this year 2022, the law is in force in New York S.1168-A/A.108-B, which requires that nurses be included on committees that establish hospital staffing.
Historically this guild was out of that conversation.
In light of this legislation, representatives of unionized professional nurses and auxiliaries of each hospital center, they have the right to supervise staffing plans such as matrices or grids that indicate how many patients are assigned to each nurse and the number of auxiliary personnel in each unit.
What does the NYSNA propose to retain nurses?
- Correct the proposal of the newly created retention bond to include all nurses.
- offer more enrollment and forgiveness facilities of loans for training in the nursing area.
- Expand the capacity of nursing schools.
- set presidency and preceptorship programs to support new nursing staff.
- Implement and meet minimum standards of infectious diseases in health care workplaces.
- Classify the coronavirus as a Occupational disease for Workers’ Compensation claims.
Work overload:
- 1 out of 3 nurses have left the NY health centers due to work overload.
- 8 patients on average by law each nurse must attend.
- 20 and up to 30 patients Many nurses are attending.
