NYSNA Members Continue Fight to Protect Patient Care in the North Country
For decades, access to safe, quality patient care in rural parts of New York State has been on the decline. In some counties, few healthcare professionals exist at all; in others, New Yorkers are prevented from accessing care by limited by transportation or providers that don’t accept their health insurance or Medicaid. That’s why NYSNA members from seven facilities in the North Country are joining forces—to bargain for fair contracts that demand hospitals prioritize patients over profits and ensure access to care for their communities.
Turning Up the Heat in the North Country
NYSNA members at Adirondack Medical Center, Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Carthage Area Hospital, Samaritan Medical Center, UVM-Alice Hyde Medical Center, UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, and UVM-Elizabethtown Community Hospital are all hard at work at the bargaining table—and they’re building momentum to settle the contracts that North Country healthcare workers and patients deserve.
As bargaining heats up at tables across the North Country, NYSNA members are taking action to make sure their voices are heard. In the last few weeks, NYSNA members Alice Hyde, Carthage/Claxton, and CVPH have all marched on the boss to deliver their bargaining platform petitions. All NYSNA members in the North Country are calling for safe staffing ratios and the fair wages and benefits necessary to recruit and retain new nurses.
In addition to marching on their employers, NYSNA members also launched a coordinated ad campaign this month—We Care for the North Country—reminding patients and community members that it’s frontline healthcare workers that care for them in times of need. They also launched a social media ad campaign featuring nurses speaking about the critical need to protect access to care in the North Country. Check out the videos on the NYSNA Facebook page.
NYSNA Members Hold Roundtable on Access to Care for Allies, Legislators
In addition to their work at the bargaining table and inside the hospital, NYSNA members also held a roundtable in late November for community allies and elected officials. At the roundtable, attendees heard testimony from four NYSNA nurses in the North Country, who spoke about the state of care in their communities, the lack of access to critical healthcare services across the North Country, and the undue burden this lack of access places on nurses, patients, and entire communities.
Speaking on an issue that affected her family this past year, NYSNA member Jessica Thornton, RN shared, “We don’t have pediatric services at Claxton-Hepburn, outside of primary care, and that means no one at the hospital would touch my son’s injury. For hours they tried to get him a transfer to a hospital with the services he required, but nothing stuck. At 1:30 am, nearly 8 hours after breaking his leg, my father and I drove my son almost 3 hours to Syracuse, the closest hospital with the pediatric orthopedic services he needed.”
What’s Next?
North Country members are energized about the coordinated campaign and hopeful that joining forces with other healthcare professionals will help them win the fair contracts that their communities deserve. Later this month, they’ll hold a virtual townhall meeting on protecting patient care in the North Country to bring attention to increasingly limited access to care ahead of the impending cuts to healthcare funding. RSVP here to join the townhall!