Hundreds of UVM-CVPH Nurses and Healthcare Workers March and Speak Out Outside the Hospital
For Immediate Release: Thursday, May 21, 2026
Contact: Joseph Celestin | press@nysna.org | 518-776-8337
Kristi Barnes | press@nysna.org | 646-853-4489
HUNDREDS OF UVM-CVPH NURSES AND HEALTHCARE WORKERS MARCH AND SPEAK OUT OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL
NYSNA Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Hold Informational Picket for Safe Staffing and a Fair Contract
Hospital Staff Highlight Patient Safety, Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence Concerns in Contract Fight
Plattsburgh, N.Y.– On Thursday, May 21, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) nurses and healthcare professionals at University of Vermont-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (UVM-CVPH) held an informational picket outside the hospital, marching, chanting, and speaking out for a fair contract that protects safe patient care. The union healthcare workers have been fighting for a fair contract that protects patient and worker safety for months.
NYSNA nurses and healthcare professionals are demanding the hospital include enforceable safe staffing standards in the contract to protect safe, quality patient care. Hospital administrators have recently made staffing standards less safe and are looking to cut healthcare workers’ health benefits.
Hundreds of CVPH staff hit the streets, marching along busy Cornelia Street in downtown Plattsburgh, making their voices heard. Several nurses took a break from picketing to address the assembled crowd.
Medical-surgical nurse Shawn Baker, RN, a member of the hospital’s safe staffing committee, said: “Last year, management raised our safe staffing ratios from one nurse to four patients, to one nurse to five patients. NYSNA nurses are worried that hospital administrators are going to make our safe staffing ratio even worse–even less safe. Safe staffing means having enough time to spend with your patients. When you have too many patients to take care of, you do not have that time.”
Emergency room nurse Chris Sweisz, RN, said: “What we want is accountability. We want a seat at the table, and we want our concerns heard, instead of the hospital just doing whatever it wants. In the ER, our staff is overtaxed and overworked, sometimes with eight to ten patients per nurse. That is not safe for anybody.”
Sweisz talked about the toll that understaffing takes on nurses and how it leads to burnout and poor retention. He mentioned that hospital administrators used to tout NYSNA members’ good health benefits as a way to recruit and retain staff, but now those benefits are on the chopping block.
Patients and communities pay the price when hospitals don’t hire and retain nurses. In 2022, according to hospital financial reports, UVM-CVPH spent $48.6 million on expensive, temporary travel nurses that don’t know the local community. The hospital spent $45 million on travel nurses in 2023 and $23.5 million in 2024. Hiring enough staff nurses and providing good health benefits would be much less expensive.
NYSNA Eastern Regional Director and local NYSNA nurse leader Vicki Davis-Courson, RN, said: “We are disappointed that hospital leadership has brought us to this point of having to picket and fight for basic worker and patient safety. We know that CVPH doesn’t need to roll back the patient safety standards and good healthcare we have won—they can afford to do the right thing and negotiate a fair contract.”
Ransley Garrow, a NYSNA member in the information technology department, raised concerns about the hospital’s refusal to put safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence. He described how AI implemented without clinical testing or frontline worker input can compromise quality care for patients and lead to job losses for real workers.
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said: “North Country nurses and healthcare professionals deserve to work in safe conditions for fair wages and benefits—nothing less. NYSNA is incredibly proud of our members who always fight to keep care local and to maintain the best care for their communities. We are united and ready to fight for the safe, quality care that healthcare workers and our patients deserve.”
NYSNA represents nearly 900 nurses and healthcare professionals at the University of Vermont-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (UVM-CVPH). Their contract expired on Dec. 21, 2025.
North Country NYSNA nurses and healthcare professionals are united to protect access to safe, quality patient care in the face of hospital consolidation and federal healthcare cuts. In 2026, NYSNA settled fair contracts that deliver safe staffing and family-sustaining wages and benefits at Samaritan Medical Center, North Star Carthage Area Hospital and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, and UVM-Elizabethtown. We secured additional New York state funding for Carthage and Claxton to keep those hospitals open for care, and continue to bargain contracts at Adirondack Medical Center, UVM-Alice Hyde Medical Center and UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital.
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The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country's largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.