Sometimes I’m the Only Nurse in the Room
Karine Raymond has been a Registered Nurse (RN) at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx for more than 15 years, caring for patients with heart problems. As a nurse in the catheterization lab, she deals with patients who are getting pacemakers, stents, or other cardiac procedures.
Up until a few years ago, Karine’s hospital followed a ratio of two nurses to every patient undergoing a procedure. Then the hospital’s administrators reduce staffing to a level that Raymond and her colleagues know from long experience is far from the safest for their patients.
Since the reduction, says Karine, “Sometimes, I’m the only nurse in the room. “I’m both taking notes and administering strong medicines by myself. If I need an extra pair of hands – if the patient has a reaction to a medicine or needs life-saving measures – there’s only one of me.”
Karine would like to see enforceable safe staffing ratios in her hospital and others in New York. “There’s no question there needs to be safe and enforceable nurse staffing levels to ensure the patient’s safety. Everyone who walks through hospital doors should be treated like a VIP, but right now that’s simply not the case.”
She went to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA)’s research department and asked them to research patient-care standards for cath labs across the country. “When I went to my hospital’s management with research from NYSNA showing how understaffing endangers patients, they refused to listen to my concerns.”
Safe staffing is not only a problem in the cath labs. Karine says, “As the chairperson of the bargaining unit at the Weiler campus, I have the opportunity to visit all the patient care units. The number one issue in nearly every unit is understaffing.”
That is why Karine is joining with registered nurses at New York City’s private hospitals and urging hospital administrators to put patients over profits.
If hospitals hired more nurses, patients would receive the type of personal attention they deserve. Patients would also benefit from reduced waiting times, and there would be far less staff turnover.
As Karine says, “I went into nursing to care for patients. That’s all I want to do. But we need your help if we’re going to get New York hospitals to address this crisis and implement safe staffing levels.”
Sign the petition to tell New York hospitals to implement safe staffing levels so that patients finally get the quality care they deserve!