NYSNA Members Celebrate and Strategize at the 2021 TOGETHER WE RISE! Convention When NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, kicked off the 2021 convention, she affirmed the inner rumblings of members and noted, “There’s no question that we are in a pivotal moment for our union and for our profession. Words cannot begin to describe what we’ve been through during the pandemic. But every day, on every shift, we’ve been there for our patients and for that we should be proud. Together, we over 150,000 New Yorkers. The 2021 NYSNA Convention brought together nearly 300 members to New York City’s Sheraton hotel while hundreds more joined a virtual viewing of the event. Rank-and-file delegates and LBU leaders acknowledge the challenge of serving during a pandemic, while highlighting their herculean efforts to raise COVID safety measures, negotiate strong contracts and receive recognition pay. President Hagans, RN, set an immediate goal: “What each of us needs to do between now and January is to ensure the landmark staffing law we won last summer actually translates into more RNs and other caregivers at the bedside.” NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane, RN, enumerated the campaigns carried out in the course of the year from passage of safe staffing law to contract campaigns, to fights to save public hospitals, to campaigns to protect
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2021: We are one
Also attending Convention were two nurse delegates from Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Vivienne Phillips, RN, and Salina Flores, RN. They have helped make the geriatric psychiatric care unit a highly-regarded resource for the elderly. Many nursing homes send patients for care to KJMC. But recently its closure was announced. “This is very painful for us,” said Nurse Flores. “My heart is aching.” “They fixed a wheel that wasn’t broken!” exclaimed Nurse Phillips, who chairs the executive committee at KJMC. “I feel for the patients.” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, addresses nurses at the 2021 Convention.
mental healthcare services. “Thanks to your organizing,” she said, “the public is scrutinizing our hospitals and nursing homes like never before.”
Past the breaking point “It’s been challenging at times, even overwhelming,” said Board Member Michelle Jones, RN, and co-chair, Flushing Hospital Medical Center’s LBU. NYSNA Board Member Steve Bailey, RN, who works at Erie County Medical Center Terrace View Long Term Care, spoke about the Emergency Department at ECMC with patients “lined up down the hallway. In many of our hospitals, the COVID-19 pandemic brought staffing levels past the breaking point.”
Care for every New Yorker For Marva Wade, RN, retired nurse delegate, whose tireless work on behalf of the New York Health Act and participation in the Labor Campaign for Single Payer has been a great inspiration. “COVID-19 demonstrates the absolute need to provide care for every New Yorker,” she said. “Crowded households living on low wage jobs translated into death,” she said.
Political and Policy Platform The First Resolution, presented by Board Member Sonia Lawrence, RN, Lincoln Hospital, on NYSNA’s Political and Policy Platform, 20212022, was passed overwhelmingly by delegates present and online. It is a sweeping and compelling statement that acknowledges healthcare as a human right, references the social determinants of healthcare, calls for protection of nurses’ scope of practice and implementation of minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in all patient care settings. The Resolution opposes expansion of forprofit healthcare — “patients must take precedence over profit.” “We’ve got momentum — and leverage — that we’ve never had,” said Executive Director Pat Kane, RN. “Our new staffing law is just the beginning of what we can accomplish if we stand up and stick together.”
