North Country Healthcare Workers Speak Out for Safe Staffing and a Fair Contract

On Wednesday, April 29, NYSNA members at UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH) held a speak-out to demand safe staffing and a fair contract. NYSNA nurses, healthcare professionals and IT professionals, have been fighting for a fair contract that protects patient care and ensures access to care for North Country patients since earlier this year. Kim Hartshorn, Secretary of the Northeast Central CLC, joined NYSNA members in solidarity at the speak-out. The Plattsburgh Press Republican, NBC5, ABC22, the Sun Community News, and WAMC all covered the action.   

Last year, CVPH unilaterally changed staffing ratios in four medical-surgical units, over the objections of NYSNA members, violating their contract and making the hospital less safe. Nearly a year later, understaffing remains a widespread problem at the hospital and puts safe, quality patient care at risk. At the bargaining table, CVPH management refuses to be held accountable for safety standards at all and has proposed changes to the contract that only stand to make staffing worse.  

What’s next?

NYSNA members at CVPH care deeply for their community and will not allow hospital management to put patient care at risk. Nurses held this week’s speak-out to call attention to the current understaffing problem and to call attention to CVPH’s refusal to work with nurses on a solution that prioritizes nurse and patient safety over profits. NYSNA members will continue to push back against management’s proposed staffing changes until they reach a solution that ensures access to care and safe, quality patient care for the communities that CVPH serves. Keep up the great work, NYSNA members at CVPH!

Like NYSNA members at CVPH, nurses at Adirondack Medical Center and UVM-Alice Hyde Medical Center continue to bargain for fair contracts that protect patient care in the North Country.