NY Nurse September 2016

Brooklyn Interregional

Brooklyn members gathered on September 7 for a combined Interregional/Candidate Forum, where nurses from Wyckoff, Brooklyn Hospital, Interfatih, Kingsbrook Jewish, Kings County, Maimonides, NY Methodist and Fresenius celebrated this year’s victories and planned for the challenges ahead. Maimonides member and NYSNA Board Member Nancy Hagans, RN, emceed the candidates forum, where more than a dozen political candidates spoke and then answered member questions on safe staffing, corporate healthcare mergers impacting Brooklyn hospitals and other issues.

NYSNA nurses are joining public health officials in educating the public on the growing threat posed by the Zika virus.

Top New York City health officials have spent recent weeks conducting outreach in the city’s Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods.

NYSNA’s Training and Upgrading Fund turned two years old in July and is already expanding to provide even more training opportunities for members.

NYSNA members won the unique nurse-managed and employer-paid fund in our most recent contract with NYC Health + Hospitals. The employer contributes a percentage of gross payroll for members to access tuition reimbursement as well as CEU, RN to BSN, certification, and preceptor programs.

NYSNA’s New York City members are supporting the efforts of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs to encourage enrollment in IDNYC, a program in which the city provides a free government-issued identification card to city residents 14 years of age or older.

More than 75 NYSNA nurses from eight hospitals marched alongside the NYSNA float in New York City’s West Indian Day Parade on September 5. Members brought their children, grandchildren and other family members to celebrate Caribbean heritage.

Nursing school graduates frequently cite a lack of hands-on experience as the primary obstacle to landing their first hospital jobs. The Margaret Whitehorne Student Nurse Service Program at NYC’s Health + Hospital’s Bellevue Hospital coordinated by Anne Bové, NYSNA’s Board Secretary and President of our union’s NYC H + H/Mayorals Executive Council, aims to fill this clinical training gap. For the past few summers, the program has paired more than 100 nursing students with a senior RN preceptor.

NYSNA nurses are keeping the heat on Catholic Health Services of Long Island (CHS) to improve staffing at Smithtown’s St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center and St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson.

Television ads featuring NYSNA RNs Tammy Miller, of St. Catherine of Siena, and Tracy Kosciuk, of St. Charles, are running on local cable channels, a mobile billboard can be seen driving through the hospitals’ service areas, and the community is showing support with lawn signs and calls to the CEOs for fair contracts and safe staffing.

A record 1.1 million visitors came to the 2016 New York State Fair, held August 25 through September 5 at the State Fairgrounds outside Syracuse. Thirty NYSNA members volunteered at our union’s booth throughout the fair.

The NYSNA booth was a popular stop in the fair’s Science and Industry Building, where members talked to the public about the need for safe staffing and single payer legislation. Thousands stopped by to learn about the issues and sign our petitions, including many elected leaders.

NYSNA nurses and 1199SEIU colleagues at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie were out in force at two actions on September 13, the day their hospital held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $466 million expansion. Standing outside the main entrance, the workers were there to welcome hospital trustees, the press and the community with a simple and hard to miss message: safe staffing now!

Earlier this year, NYSNA nurses organized, rallied, and lobbied for the passage of the Enhanced Safety Net Hospital bill. In June, near the very end of the legislative session, both the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate held votes on the bill (A9476A) (S 6948A Enhanced Safety Net). It passed with unanimous votes in both the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate with votes of 100-0 and 62-0, a huge end of session victory for NYSNA nurses and our patients.

Over just a few days during the last week of August NYSNA members at three hospitals in the Central and Capital Regions brought months of contract negotiations to a spectacular close, reaching tentative agreements at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, and Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville.

Near unanimous ratifications quickly followed, with NYSNA members winning key improvements in staffing as well as wages and benefits.

Upstate New York had never seen anything like it!

NYSNA nurses descended on Washington DC on August 27 to call for an end to the public health crisis created by gun violence. Nurses also created a touching video with firsthand accounts of caring for gun violence victims.

Many nurses have been personally impacted by gun violence and have experienced the devastating impacts firsthand. Judith Cuthchin, RN at Woodhull Medical Center tragically lost her daughter to gun violence in July of 2013.

NYSNA nurses and other frontline caregivers worked around the clock to care for victims of 9/11. On September 7, NYSNA issued a proclamation commemorating the 15-year anniversary of that terrible tragedy:

“Today…we remember the terrible loss and continue to honor first responders for their extraordinary bravery. We remember our roles in the frenzy of the many injured, providing care and comfort.”

Anne Bové, RN, NYSNA Secretary and President of NYSNA’s H + H/Mayorals Executive Council recalls the key role that public hospital nurses played in responding to the crisis.

The great American horror show

I was as outraged as anyone to see pictures of attack dogs released by shock troops in North Dakota to “neutralize” Native American protesters fighting to save their water and their nation from the toxic and dangerous effects of a volatile pipeline snaking through their lands. It brought to mind the pictures of police dogs used to attack African-American civil rights protesters in the South that haunted my childhood over 50 years ago.

“The Real Future of Nursing: What Will It Look Like Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)”

7-Night Southern Caribbean Cruise Conference
from San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 22 - March 1, 2015