NYSNA in the Spotlight

It was clear from the beginning of the pandemic that hospital administrators, public health officials, and lawmakers were unprepared for CoVID-19, and that frontline healthcare workers, along with our patients, would pay a heavy price.

For years nursing has ranked as the most trusted profession. But as New York struggled to respond to the exponential growth in CoVID cases, and the people charged with protecting the public’s health continued to relax safety standards and ignore science, NYSNA members became an even more critical source of information and expertise.

a criTical Voice

And NYSNA’s influence with the public, along with elected leaders, has never been greater. During the early months of the pandemic, NYSNA leaders were in regular contact with the Governor’s office and New York’s CoVID-19 task Force, letting them know that no matter what they were hearing from hospital Ceos, conditions at the bedside weren’t improving fast enough and frontline healthcare workers were at risk.

nYsna in The sPoTliGhT

We also worked closely with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYC Health + Hospitals Ceo Dr. Mitchell Katz to target relief efforts to the facilities most in need, to find temporary housing for caregivers who needed it to protect their loved ones, and to cut through management resistance so bedside nurses could get the ppe they needed.

u.S. Senators and Congressional leaders, along with dozens of members of the State Assembly and State Senate, joined NYSNA town hall meetings to hear about conditions on the frontlines and what they could do to help.

equally impressive was NYSNA’s outsized media presence during the pandemic. In March and April alone NYSNA leaders were featured in over 2,500 newspaper stories, television segments, and radio broadcasts. the biggest names in tV news—from oprah and Anderson Cooper, to Don lemon and Dr. phil— interviewed NYSNA leaders, and our campaigns were front-page news everywhere from the Daily News to the Wall Street Journal.

NYSNA leaders were also profiled in national outlets like USA Today and Time magazine, which featured NYSNA member and Wyckoff eD nurse Amy o’Sullivan on the cover as part of their 100 Most Influential people of 2020.

NYSNA had an outsized media presence during the pandemic, including interviews with the biggest names in TV news, and front-page stories in the nation’s leading newspapers.

Springtime remote operations by the numbers

In mid-March NYSNA quickly moved to remote operations and ramped up digital communications on every front. During the first three months of the pandemic alone we: Hosted 667 town hall meetings, educational workshops, and information sessions for elected officials

texted 35,026 NYSNA members, over 400,000 messages total, with 46% engagement Sent 2.4 million individual emails, opened 34% of the time, on average 19,733 members filed CoVID protests of assignment 10,356 CoVID Daily Diary entries were submitted 9,646 members responded to text surveys 1,101 members participated in wellness and other trainings from our peer assistance program 568 members trained to be CoVID Action team leaders 516 members participated in our MedSurg and ICu clinical workshops Coordinated housing for over 800 members who needed temporary accommodations Managed over $20,000 in food donations to facilities across the state processed over 164 arbitrations remotely