NY Nurse May 2015

Montefiore Nurses Week is no celebration

Most hospitals recognize their nurses with banquets during National Nurses Week. Montefiore thanked its nurses with a security escort from the building on May 11.

Karine Raymond, RN and NYSNA’s Director at Large at Montefiore, said she was speaking with her...

Finally, someone who gets what it’s like to be a nurse.

The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital (Workman Publishing Company, 2015) is a new book by Alexandra Robbins, an author and investigative journalist who has written four New York Times bestselling...

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced he will bring the “New York Health Act” (A. 5062/S. 3525) to a vote before the end of the June legislative session. The Act would provide universal, comprehensive health care to all New Yorkers without premiums, co-pays, deductibles, or limited...

As a follow-up to NYSNA’s April 21 Lobby Day, members returned to Albany on May 12, this time joined by members from PEF, CWA, NYSUT, and the New York State Wide Senior Action Network — all wearing turquoise and delivering a single message: there’s a staffing crisis in New York’s healthcare...

It started in 2011 with the stroke of a pen by a newly-elected governor in Wisconsin. In signing Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker took away collective bargaining rights from the state’s public sector workers that had been in place since 1959. Act 10 restricts public sector unions to bargaining solely over...

Pat Barozie, RN, a 34-year veteran of North Shore Plainview Hospital and its LBU president, was dismissed on May 7 for doing nothing different than what she has done every day in her 41 years as a nurse: vocally advocating for patient safety, her profession and quality care.

Whenever on duty as...

In February 2014, Nancy Sheehan, an RN in St. Joseph Hospital’s Emergency Department, was brutally attacked while conducting a triage assessment; her colleague Mike Mackey, a tech who came to her aide, was also injured. Ms. Sheehan suffered a broken foot, herniated discs, and shoulder impingement...

Peconic Bay Medical Center members had endured many long-running issues with the management of the Emergency Department: short staffing, holes in the schedule, lack of equipment and favoritism. After the NYSNA Executive Committee and representative held numerous meetings with upper management and...

The temperature isn’t the only thing heating up on Long Island as summer approaches. Members at three Catholic Health Services of Long Island (CHSLI) hospitals have recently begun contract renewal negotiations. CHSLI is comprised of six acute hospitals under common management and collectively...

As I write this, I don’t know what the outcome will be of our massive negotiations campaign in the Downstate region, affecting nearly 20,000 nurses. NYSNA is challenging the supremacy of the Greater NY Hospital Association (GNYHA) and the Healthcare Association of NYS (HANYS) in these negotiations...

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More than 1,000 RNs joined together in a spirited rally at City Hall on Oct. 17. We came from the NYSNA convention and by the busload from area hospitals after the night shift with one purpose: to demand respect for patients and nurses alike. What does respect look like? A contract would...

Don’t cross the line

To see what privatization does to patient care, just look at Westchester Medical Center. 

“It was mass chaos,” recalls Jane Barrett, RN, about the consequences when hospital executives laid off 140 RNs and hundreds of caregivers last year.

Nurses at Westchester Medical Center...

The votes are in

Elections are the stand we take for candidates who have shown their commitment to fight for the issues that matter to our communities. This year we took a stand like never before and helped elect candidates across the state who will stand with us in the fight for quality patient...

“We are changing the culture of our union to stop the attacks on our patients and to keep hospitals open for care. It’s working. We have kept LICH and Interfaith open. We held the largest action for safe staffing in New York history. We are in the news and making headlines. We even are playing a key...