North Country Members Continue Fight to Defend Quality Care
Last year, NYSNA members at seven facilities joined forces to defend safe, quality patient care in New York’s North Country. Over the last decade, hospitals have eroded patient care1 in rural New York, and nurses and healthcare professionals saw an opportunity to advocate for their patients in upcoming contract campaigns. Since then, five hospitals have settled fair contracts, but two holdouts remain.
Nurses Face Off Against University of Vermont Health
This summer, NYSNA nurses and healthcare professionals at the University of Vermont Health-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (UVMH-CVPH) have continued contract negotiations, and enforceable safe staffing language remains a key issue. Hospital administrators are once again2 attempting to change staffing ratios and remove staffing language from the contract altogether.
This is not surprising, especially considering UVMH’s recent service closures and layoffs. In early June, UVMH announced systemwide layoffs and closures, including the Adirondack Blood Donor Center, which supplied 95% of the blood used at the network’s New York hospitals and served patients in a three-county region. CVPH members launched a digital petition and held a speak-out3 to protest the blood donor center closure.
At the speak-out, Nancy Roberts, RN, an Adirondack Blood Donor Center nurse for 20 years, said: “In just a few short days, more than 1,000 community members have signed our petition to save the Adirondack Blood Donor Center. Since UVMH took over CVPH and other community hospitals in New York, they have reduced services here in the North Country. We are saying, ‘No more!’”
Despite NYSNA members’ efforts, UVMH closed the Adirondack Blood Donor Center on July 10.
Since the closure, nurses and healthcare professionals have continued to build community support for their campaign and keeping care and good jobs in New York by canvassing and distributing store signs to local businesses and delivering letters to members of the CVPH board of trustees.
They have also shown strong solidarity with our union siblings in Vermont. In July, CVPH members spoke at a town hall hosted by UVMH Medical Center Support Staff United and the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals; and in August, CVPH members traveled to Burlington, Vermont, to join our union siblings at an informational picket.
Other UVMH facilities settled fair contracts earlier this year. NYSNA nurses at UVMH-Alice Hyde Medical Center settled a fair contract in June4, and UVMH-Elizabethtown Community Hospital nurses’ won a great new contract with entry into the NYSNA Benefit Fund in March. Now it’s CVPH members’ turn!
Frontline Nurses Deserve Affordable Health Benefits
NYSNA nurses at Adirondack Medical Center have also continued to bargain for a fair contract that includes affordable health benefits for nurses and their families. Adirondack is the last NYSNA-represented facility in the North Country without access to the NYSNA Benefit Fund, but nurses are working to change that during this contract campaign.
Nurses held a speak-out5 on July 29 to make their demands for affordable health benefits clear to hospital administrators. At the speak-out, Bill Schneider, BSN, RN, CCRN, a PACU nurse at Adirondack and NYSNA second vice president, said: “Our hospital must work harder to draw nurses into our community and keep them here. Saranac Lake is beautiful and the people are welcoming, but other hospitals in the region provide more generous packages. Adirondack can change that by settling a fair contract that includes an affordable benefits package and respectful wages, especially in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.” The July speak-out was the first time in 25 years that Adirondack nurses have spoken out or rallied outside the hospital.
What’s Next?
Enforceable safe staffing language and affordable health benefits are key to keeping nurses, healthcare professionals and the communities they serve safe and healthy. And in a region that has been ravaged by hospital consolidation, service closures and takeovers by out-of-state health systems, it is more important than ever that NYSNA members settle contracts that will help them deliver the safe, quality care North Country residents deserve.
Sources:
1 https://www.nysna.org/resources/ protecting-rural-patients-andcommunities- access-care-and-hospitalconsolidation- north
2 https://www.nysna.org/press/ nysna-members-champlain-valleyphysicians- hospital-hold-speak-outdemand- safe-staffing
3 https://www.nysna.org/news/cvphhealthcare- professionals-speak-out-saveadirondack- blood-donor-center
4 https://www.nysna.org/press/ uvm-alice-hyde-medical-center-nursesoverwhelmingly- ratify-new-contractagreement
5 https://www.nysna.org/news/ adirondack-medical-center-nurses-speakout- fair-contract