In Brief: February 2016

Sisterhood on Staten Island

NYSNA’s Treasurer Patricia Kane, RN, is the Staten Island Sisterhood’s 2016 Chair. At the annual meeting in early February, 12 NYSNA RNs who work in psychiatry and substance abuse joined her as she asked for collective focus to increase awareness of substance abuse and to help educate parents to better deal with the issue.

The Staten Island Sisterhood was formed 2010 when the SI chapter of New York State Women issued a call to the island’s volunteer women’s groups concerned with the welfare of women and families to join together and approach issues with a united voice. There are no fees or governing body. The women simply work together throughout the year pooling their talents and resources and volunteering their time to foster positive change. Leadership rotates yearly and the chairing organization guides the Sisterhood’s focus for the coming year.

Labor solidarity in Lockport

Jane James, RN at Newfane Hospital’s Emergency Department, and her two sons delivered lunch to some of the 44 Lockport steelworkers that have been on the picket lines since last August.

Capital District Inter-regional

NYSNA Nurses from Ellis, Bellevue Women’s, Nathan Littauer, St. Elizabeth, and Oneida hospitals gathered at Beardslee Castle for the Central District Inter-regional on February 10, attended by NYSNA President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN. The agenda focused on winning safe staffing legislation and ways in which the regions’ nurses can support colleagues with ongoing contract campaigns at St. Elizabeth, Oneida, and Nathan Littauer.

Neither cold, nor snow…

Extreme cold weather over Valentine’s Day weekend caused infrastructure problems at Nathan Littauer Hospital, leading several units to be shut down and patients to be diverted, but NYSNA nurses and caregivers worked around the clock to make patients safe and comfortable until operations returned to normal.

RN Dori Kila to the rescue

When NYC was hit in late January with its first big blizzard of the winter, Dori Kila, RN, NYSNA member at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, was heralded by grateful coworkers. She drove night shift nurses to the hospital to relieve exhausted day shift nurses and brought them food as well — all the more remarkable because she herself was not scheduled to work.