NY Nurse: December 2021

During times of difficulty, many people naturally look to faith or religious institutions for assistance. But several hospital systems, including those owned by religious charities, appeared to betray that trust by placing liens on the homes of people who fell on hard times and were unable to satisfy medical debt. According to the November 2021 report, “Discharged into Debt: Nonprofit Hospitals File Liens on Patients’ Homes” by the Community Service Society, charitable hospitals in New York imposed 4,880 liens on the homes of patients with outstanding medical bills.

In September 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a statewide disaster emergency due to healthcare staffing shortages. Even before her declaration, many in the media drummed up a false narrative that the shortage was due to nurses who were fired or resigned in protest over the vaccine mandate. NYSNA believes every New Yorker should be vaccinated. However, mandatory vaccination programs have resulted in very few dismissals of RNs within NYSNA. More importantly, this narrative allowed health systems to evade accountability.

Every day, nurse practitioners (NPs) save lives and improve the health of our friends and family. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that NPs are essential to our healthcare system. To honor their heroic efforts, communities nationwide are recognizing the criti-cal role of NPs as part of the annual National Nurse Practitioner Week (NP Week) celebration, held November 7-13. This year, the NP Week theme is “NPs: Going the Extra Mile.”

The start of a new year brings anticipation. There is anticipation of what one hopes to accomplish personally and professionally. There is also trepidation about uncertainty for what the coming year may bring. While there is a lot we do not know, there are key things we are certain will greet us in 2022. As we round out 2021 and prepare to enter a new year, NYSNA is mindful that our work fighting for healthcare workers and patients is entering a new frontier. Below are four key things we are preparing for in the coming year.

Events Began Nov. 17 and Continued Through Mid-December

Across the country, fellow nurses have spoken out about the challenges of providing care in a pandemic. In painstaking detail, we have described what it was like to work until our souls and physical bodies could take no more. We urged health systems to provide more resources to enable us to care for patients and ourselves, including hiring more nurses to address staffing shortages.