Tribute to the fallen

On April 1, nurses and supporters gathered at Greeley Square in Manhattan in a solemn and emotional gathering to honor the fallen. NYSNA members who died from exposure to COVID-19 were remembered by their colleagues and NYSNA staff. “Nurses have been on the frontlines battling COVID-19 for a year,” said NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane, RN, “often lacking the resources they need to properly care for their patients and protect themselves. Many of them have been infected, some suffer from ongoing complications, and others were ultimately taken from us.”

“I am an ICU nurse and have been caring for patients with COVID-19 since the first surge," said Katie Paccione, RN, New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center. “When two patients need us at the same time we do our best to provide quality care to both. We should never have been in this situation to begin with.”

Dedicated caregivers helped save more than 150,000 New Yorkers. But the nurses can be heard saying, “We could have saved more!”

“We cannot ensure safe, quality care without the staffing ratios for nurses reviewed by professionals in the nursing field and set out in peer-reviewed studies. Here in NYC at our public hospitals, virtually none of our units, including critical care, are staffed even at close to appropriate ratios. That short staffing can be measured in lost lives. Now is the time to make safe staffing the law in New York so that all hospitals in the state are ensured life-saving levels.” - NYSNA Board Member Judith Cutchin, RN, President, NYSNA's NYC H+H/Mayorals Executive Council