NY Nurse January (NYC)

New York

nurse New York City edition | January 2019

the official publication of the new york state nurses association

Public nurses speak out, PP. 7-10

Nurses demand respect, pp. 3, 5, 11

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New York Nurse january 2019

Our working conditions are our patients’ healing conditions.

They are one and the same.

By Judy SheridanGonzalez, RN, NYSNA President

Advocating for patients. Advancing the profession.SM Board of Directors President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN, MSN, FNP First Vice President Anthony Ciampa, RN Second Vice President Karine M. Raymond, RN, MSN Secretary Tracey Kavanagh, RN, BSN Treasurer Patricia Kane, RN Directors at Large Anne Bové, RN, MSN, BC, CCRN, ANP Judith Cutchin, RN Seth Dressekie, RN, MSN, NP Jacqueline Gilbert, RN Nancy Hagans, RN Robin Krinsky, RN Lilia V. Marquez, RN Nella Pineda-Marcon, RN, BC Verginia Stewart, RN Marva Wade, RN Regional Directors Southeastern Yasmine Beausejour, RN Southern Sean Petty, RN Central Marion Enright, RN Lower Hudson/NJ Jayne Cammisa, RN, BSN Western Chiqkena Collins, RN Eastern Martha Wilcox, RN Executive Editor Jill Furillo, RN, BSN, PHN Executive Director Editorial offices located at: 131 W 33rd St., New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-785-0157 x 159 Email: communications@nysna.org Website: www.nysna.org Subscription rate: $33 per year ISSN (Print) 1934-7588/ISSN (Online) 1934-7596 ©2019, All rights reserved

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urses will do whatever we have to do to advocate for our patients, our communities, the quality of the care we deliver and our own survival. Whether we engage in campaigns, petitions, job actions, media outreach, pickets or even strikes, our hearts are with our patients and the practice we so cherish.

Sometimes it feels like a charade.

You have a contract, signed by both parties, but the hospital has

found multiple ways to violate the current agreement.

You file grievances, but administration rules against you in the ‘kangaroo court’ of steps.

You go to arbitration after a year, maybe longer.

The arbitrator gets paid a lot and in order to be chosen, he or she has to be as nonpartisan as possible.

Thus, the decision is often shrouded by political considerations.

So, the contract expires. Nurses are activated!

They let the negotiating team know what they need to survive at work and at home.

You make all the right arguments: nurses testify to the daily traumas we endure in attempting to provide safe, quality care; to the need to retire with dignity; to the family and school obligations pulling at us; to the fear of violence often visited upon us as the frontline emissaries of a dysfunctional healthcare system.

The millionaires plead poverty

And the bosses tell you they have no money, yet you know there are exorbitant salaries for top execs (especially in the private sector

where real estate speculation, purchases and mergers cost millions), huge amounts of money spent on consultants and marketers, on technology systems, equipment purchases, drugs and a variety of practices—and you have no say in any of that. But you have to pay for it.

They offer union members crumbs to divide among ourselves.

They want to “charge” us in order to pay for safe staffing. They actually expect us to fund our own contract! All of this without opening up the books for us to examine how they actually spend the money—money generated by caregivers like us.

What we know

Over 25,000 nurses are in the process of negotiating contracts as I write this. The private sector complains about the unjust healthcare system but routinely manipulates it. The public sector is grossly underfunded and pits one set of workers against another as a result. Neither private nor public administrative groups energetically support Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, the only viable long-term solution to the morass that is healthcare in New York, and in the nation.

Likewise, neither entity supports minimum nurse patient ratios, the critical element in providing safe, quality care. So, as they maneuver their way through the delivery cobwebs, the workers and patients continue to suffer.

No victories have ever been won without sacrifice and struggle. The Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1937— when auto workers occupied the factory, risking injury and even death—resulted in the granting of multiple workers’ rights and

union recognition for the United Auto Workers (UAW) which grew from 30,000 to 500,000 members within a year.

The “wildcat” Postal Workers Strike of 1970 granted federal workers the right to bargain collectively and transformed post offices into safer, more hygienic environments.

And in 2005, when then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to roll back his state’s nurse-patient ratios law, the California Nurses Association (CNA) ignited a broad grassroots movement that resulted in the stunning defeat of a series of anti-worker initiatives launched by the governor, who was ultimately forced out of office. The ratios prevailed!

What we must do

We can’t wait for our hospital “leaders” to find the courage to support a just healthcare system that bans predatory insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and overpriced consultants and that recognizes nurses’ and caregivers’ desperate need for adequate staffing.

Nurses and caregivers have an ethical and historic responsibility to radically alter the way health care is delivered. We do this in contract campaigns, in the legislature, in our communities and in the streets. In years to come, our heroic role in this transformation will be celebrated.

The time for universal, accessible, affordable healthcare and safe staffing ratios is NOW.

Bargaining report

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Nurses deserve respect!

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t’s called a perfect storm. At no point in NYSNA’s history has the union been engaged in bargaining on behalf of so many members at so many hospitals and facilities at one time.

NYSNA members are ready!

From the public systems in NYC (see pages 7-10) and Buffalo, in upstate and downstate private hospitals, and at Shore Medical Center in NJ, NYSNA members are full throttle in their efforts to bargain good contracts for themselves, patients and the thousands of communities served.

Contract Action Teams (CATs) have been established at the facilities in all contract negotiations with NYSNA members. CATs conduct surveys, gather and deliver petition signatures, carry out roving sessions, make CAT conference calls, and organize sticker days and CAT walks. They are everywhere!

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There are serious staffing issues at Kingsbrook. All members want them addressed and we recognize that this is the time to come together.”

Upstate bargaining

Over the last months, bargaining has been underway at Putnam Hospital and Albany Medical Center, two hospitals organized and having joined the union, bringing the total number of members to over 42,000. Take that Janus!

Putnam and Albany Med are not alone. Hudson Valley Hospital, a facility in the NewYork-Presbyterian

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Management, who are not at the bedside, want to say how many patients should be cared for. They diminish concerns for safe staffing. We need safe ratios to monitor patients better. Management needs to listen to us and address concerns of the patients.”

Shernette Brown, RN, Montefiore Weiler

Contract Action Team leaders at Manhattan meeting, January 23

Feyoneisha McGrath, RN, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center (at left) system, voted to join NYSNA as well, and that contract negotiation is underway. St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison is at the bargaining table at this time, as well.

Also upstate, 200 members at Canton-Potsdam Hospital are in bargaining. They are pushing back against a giveback on health insurance.

Western New York

At Erie County Medical Center with 1,100 NYSNA members, bargaining commenced on December 27 and continues in February.

Staffing leads the RN agenda. It is first time for open bargaining at a facility that serves the entire Western Continued on page 5

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We have a strong sense of duty to our patients— the fight is about our patients and delivering quality care. When we say, ‘Safe staffing ratios save lives,’ we mean it. Nurses are ready to rise up for this cause!

Anthony Ciampa, RN, NYSNA First Vice President, NewYorkPresbyterian Hospital

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New York Nurse January 2019

It’s about the communities

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By Jill Furillo, RN, NYSNA Executive Director

Community Accountability in the form of a “community outreach committee.” Hospital management to make available appropriate facilities to meet and interact with community stakeholders and their representatives. Included would be the following: With notice, committee members will be permitted to chaperone stakeholders on tours of hospital facilities.

he bargaining in Buffalo, Albany, the Hudson Valley and throughout New York City—both in the public and privates, in all the hospitals where NYSNA negotiations are now underway that share demands for safe staffing ratios, and for safe and healthy work environments— our aim throughout is to care for the communities we serve.

Our bargaining is fundamentally about creating equality in hospital care. Staffing ratios standardize the essentials of care and, in this way, we are agents of equality—equality in services that literally affect life and death.

New York City

A review of conditions in Upper Manhattan neighborhoods, home to 200,000 residents, reveals a poverty rate of 20 percent and a high unemployment rate of 12 percent.

We are well aware that the social determinants of health play a central role in the lives of many of the communities in which we provide care.

Financial hardship in this Manhattan community is palpable, with 53 percent of neighborhood residents “rent burdened,” meaning “households pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing and may have difficulty affording food, clothing, transportation and healthcare.” And healthcare.

Overall, 14 percent of neighborhood residents here reported being uninsured, a figure higher than the city average, and 17 percent of adults in 2017 went without necessary medical care, according to NYC data. As a result, the rate of avoidable hospitalizations was higher than many other neighborhoods in the five boroughs.

Even in Midtown Manhattan, a largely white and Asian neighborhood, there is an 11 percent poverty rate and one of the highest rates of the most harmful air pollutant in the city, fine particulate matter.

In addition, at 31 percent, the binge drinking rate in Midtown is higher than the rest of New York City.

Morningside Heights/West Harlem has its own social and economic challenges, including a population with a poverty rate of 24

percent. Eleven percent of expectant mothers receive late or no prenatal care versus 6.7 percent citywide.

Death from HIV and diabetes mellitus are higher than in other parts of the city.

Brooklyn

In Brooklyn, where NYSNA nurses care for the majority of the borough’s 2.6 million residents— both in public and private facilities, hospitals are stretched to the limit caring for the underserved across the Central Brooklyn communities of Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant. There are 497 ER visits per 1,000 residents in Central Brooklyn, according to a report issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2017. There are 55 primary physicians per 100,000 people. One-in-four are “food insecure,” defined as lacking reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

In Bedford Stuyvesant almost one-in-four homes is without air conditioning and children suffer from one of the highest child asthma rates in the city. The number of adults diagnosed with hypertension is much higher than citywide.

In the Bronx, which remains the poorest urban county in the country, the patient population has disproportionately high rates of asthma and diabetes. Emergency departments are overrun, including a growing “hallway patient” population, as management refuses outright to meet real patient need. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report of 2018 ranked Bronx County 62 out of the 62 counties in the state for health outcomes. In mammography screening, for example, 59 percent of women receive

these services, and diabetes monitoring is at 77 percent. Forty percent of Bronx children live in poverty.

On Staten Island’s North Shore, care for mental and behavioral health was reduced at the very time need is growing. Here, as in many locations in New York State, rates of opioid addiction remain high and patient need is not being met by a large measure.

The enormous challenges of healthcare in NYC are exacerbated by unfair funding policies, which consistently fail to fully and equitably fund safety net hospitals. This is a critical fight going forward, one in which NYSNA plays a key role.

Buffalo and Albany

Buffalo continues to be among the five poorest urban areas in the U.S. Child poverty has remained at 30 percent. In Western New York, 20 percent of children are food insecure. Life expectancy of African Americans is five years less than that of the general population in Buffalo.

In Buffalo, and in many New York communities where our nurses provide care, we see firsthand that people living in poverty have much higher risks for many diseases. In fact, in this state poverty correlates to a 50 percent higher risk of heart disease and a 50 percent higher rate of type 2 diabetes, according to government data.

In Albany, death rates from heart disease were 212 per 100,000 in 2017, according the NYS Department of Health. This was 15 percent higher than the rate for NYS overall. For cancer deaths, Albany also was higher than the state average by approximately 15 percent. Poverty in Albany is above the national average with the city’s South End neighborhood’s poverty rate at 32.9 percent and downtown is at 49.6 percent. Unemployment is high. The many challenges of a population without a stable source of work are present in the daily lives of our new members.

As patient advocates foremost, we sit down to bargain against this backdrop of compelling need, knowing that the quality of care we provide in our communities makes all the difference in their lives.

NEW YORK NURSE january 2019

Nurses deserve respect Continued from page 3

New York area and is the sole Level One Trauma Center in the region.

Adjacent to ECMC is Terrace View Long Term Care where NYSNA nurses are also in bargaining.

Brooklyn and Queens at the table

In Brooklyn, bargaining committees are at work on their deals. In the borough’s the largest hospital, the Maimonides Medical Center, 1,700 members are on the job and are rejecting takeaways on economics and work rules. Staffing needs to be addressed, says Maimonides RN and Board Member Nancy Hagans, across the board. They are seeking a grid with ratios and good compliance, and floating language.

Interfaith Medical Center and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center are in bargaining in their capacities in the One Brooklyn Health system. At Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, staffing and floating are issues on the short list.

Brooklyn Hospital Center is at the table, too, bargaining on a host of issues, including broader staff development and nursing education and a demand that workplace violence be addressed with staff input.

As with all facilities in bargaining, staffing is key. At Brooklyn Hospital, the emergency department, med-surg and telemetry units are the focus of staffing demands.

In Queens, members at Flushing Hospital are at the table. Here, the LPN model and acute model are antiquated and unsafe. Wages must be addressed, say nurses. They have yet to receive an appropriate number of bargaining dates. NYSNA will fight for the respect Flushing nurses deserve!

Bronx-Lebanon Hospital (BronxCare) bargaining is also underway—a facility providing care in the South Bronx to an underserved population that includes many immigrants.

Workplace safety is on the agenda, as memories of a shooting in the hospital remain fresh.

RUMC and Shore Medical Center

On Staten Island, Richmond University Medical Center, 500 members are in bargaining with

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Management has refused to give us enough dates. This is nothing less than disrespect of nurses.

We are prepared and ready to negotiate.”

Nancy Hagans, RN and NYSNA Board Member, Maimonides Medical Center

Contract Action Team

members would appreciate.

Some elements of the proposed contract include: a three-year deal, with an obligation to begin negotiations at least three months before the date of expiration; staffing ratios in contract, to be maintained at all times.

A joint labor-management staffing committee is also a contract demand. It would have authority to improve ratios for individual units as conditions change.

To improve transparency, the committee would publish a list of units where staffing is insufficient more than once a month. This list would be posted on each unit and would include agency nurses and the positions they are covering.

And float pools in all specialties (for example, med-surg, critical care, pediatrics), in addition to existing float pools are among demands. Note that the number of nurses assigned to each float pool would be a local bargaining issue.

Contract proposals Increase Staffing: 12 shifts every 4 weeks without reduction of benefits and compensation.

The Expansion of On-Call Teams Protections for Workplace Violence Safeguards for Health and Safety Provide Safe Patient Handling and Movement (SPHM) Technology Missed Breaks and Meals Per Diems, Agency, and Traveler Nurses Community Cooperation Disaster Relief Union Business Probationary Period

staffing atop the demands along with retiree health.

In Somers Point, New Jersey, Shore Executive Committee at Shore Medical Center has made progress at the table with TAs signed and nine sessions under their belt. They are fighting off give-backs in MLOA, Pension and Time off. The nurses’ message to management is loud and clear: “No Give-Backs Ever!”

The “Alliance” bargaining

The NYC Hospital Alliance is in full throttle negotiations, too, with 10,000 members bargaining for their contracts. These include: Mount Sinai’s three hospitals—Mt. Sinai, Mt. Sinai West, Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s, NewYork-Presbyterian and Montefiore Medical Center. They are bargaining at the same table, sharing global proposals and negotiating local proposals separately.

The Alliance Bargaining Contract Proposals reflect a shared agenda for the nurses at these hospitals and an outline for patient care all

No Strike Clause (that allows for informational pickets and demonstrations) Weingarten Rights Organizing Rights Wages Health Insurance

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Retiree Health Differentials

We’ve been rounding a lot, having one-onone with nurses. They consistently raise the staffing issue. We’re filing POAs and going to management.

Nurses are attending bargaining sessions.

Our momentum is building.

Rehana Lowtan, RN, Brooklyn Hospital

Tuition Reimbursement and Support for Nurse Education Advanced Practice Nurse Issues Establish a Fund to Pay for Childcare or Eldercare Expenses Improve Paid Family Leave Sick Leave Time Donation

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public health

january 2019

Over 150 staff illnesses on a mother baby unit NYSNA members uncover multiple health hazards at Northwell Health Staten Island University Hospital

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t started on September 25, 2018, with an unusual smell. Then the headaches, fogginess, rashes and other symptoms arrived.

Nurses, patient care associates, clerks and managers were affected by it. The labor and delivery photographer noticed it. People from outside of the unit remarked on it.

“They keep telling us it’s safe, it’s safe, it’s safe. But every time I go in, I get sick,” RN Robyn Jacobs stated in December. Referring to one of the largest scale occupational health disasters in the city, she added, “On 9/11 they said the hazard levels were safe, and look what happened to the responders.”

agement at town hall meetings. And three months into the crisis they went to the media, getting coverage in the Daily News, Staten Island Advance and other media outlets.

Patients protected

This organizing has uncovered a pattern of maintenance and repair failures at the facility. The elevators that were fine? They have been leaking hydraulic fluid and need major renovation. The anesthetic gas system that was okay? It is riddled with leaks of sevoflurane, isoflurane and nitrous oxide— a consultant documented 143 dif-

ferent significant leaks, with levels as high as 620 ppm. The mold? Reoccurring water leaks have been documented throughout the facility.

“Ethically, as a nurse, I’m supposed to advocate for a patient,” Dawn Cardello, RN, pointed out.

“If I know newborns are exposed to something that could be potentially harmful, it’s my role as a professional to speak up.”

By uncovering the trail of hazards identified so far, our advocacy has protected patients, visitors and staff throughout the hospital. In the meantime, however, SIUH administration is leaving the 4D staff in the direct line of fire by refusing to transfer them off the unit.

Within “legal“ limits

When administration and plant operations came to Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) unit 4D, however, they said they could not smell anything. At one point, the safety officer was overheard complaining that the nurses “just wouldn’t let it go.”

Based on air testing by Northwell and outside consultants, management has maintained that everything is within regulatory limits—a typical approach in many indoor air hazard cases. Pressed about oil smells from the elevator bank next to the unit, they denied a problem and produced a clean bill of health from an elevator maintenance company. Asked to explain why anesthetic gases were appearing in air sampling reports when none were used on the floor, they repeated that none were above “legal” limits and produced reports claiming that the gas systems were in fine order, and blamed doctors for showing up on the floor with their scrubs on.

Nurses persist

Management was right about one thing: members would not let it go.

They organized a petition that was signed by 1199 members on the unit, as well as by NYSNA members. They confronted upper man-

New York Daily News December 31, 2018

New York

nurse special edition – NYC H+H/MAYORALS | january 2019

the official publication of the new york state nurses association

Standing up for a contract that protects our patients!

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New York Nurse january 2019

Nurses at NYC H+H/Mayorals

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The goal of the H+H Bargaining Committee is to negotiate collectively to obtain a fair contract that will improve wages, benefits and safe staffing for nurses.”

Judith Cutchin, RN, NYSNA Board Member and President NYC H+H/ Mayorals Executive Council

our H+H Negotiating Committee represents the diversity of nurses— RNs, NPs, case managers, head nurses—from all types of units in the many hospitals, D&T centers and mayoral departments that make up the H+H system of safety net care. Together, they are discussing and analyzing the priorities that members are identifying for the upcoming contract negotiations—improving staffing, achieving equitable salaries and maintaining and improving benefits. All of these are crucial to the successful recruitment and increased retention of the nurses New York City needs to provide continuity of quality care for our patients.

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I am excited to be an integral part of the Negotiating Committee.

I love that each NYSNA title represented by a nurse is a member of this committee to ensure that all voices are heard.

I welcome the opportunity to work with others from the public sector to negotiate for improved working conditions and comparative salaries. Many of our facilities are the gateway to healthcare for New York City’s most vulnerable citizens, and we provide these citizens with quality and compassionate nursing care on a daily basis. We need to be recognized for what we do so well!”

Suzette Williams, NP, Kings County

And we will need the support of every nurse, organized and informed by your Contract Action Team colleagues, in order to make these gains.

Committed to healthcare justice

We represent all the H+H members who provide care for the most vulnerable New Yorkers, regardless of race, income and immigration status. And we are working with the communities where our patients, and many of us live, to

protect and expand the services our minority and immigrant communities need for mental health, diabetes, sickle cell, addiction, asthma and heart disease, as well as acute care. We are committed to healthcare justice for the Other New York. And we know how to fight to achieve that justice by putting patients over profits. That means fighting—at every level of government—side-by-side with our communities for funding to support those services.

Our call for community involvement A ccess to High-Quality Medical Care and Treatment as a Human Right lA Democratic Process for Allocation of Healthcare Resources in our Communities lA ctively Addressing Social Determinants of Health and Impacts on Health Outcomes of Patients and Communities lR acial and Economic Justice by Addressing the Social Determinants of Health lP atients over Profits lA dvocate to maintain and extend the role of public hospitals and the public healthcare system in New York lW ork on the city, state and federal level to expand funding until it’s commensurate with the demands on the public system l

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Our vision is to accomplish a task that is much needed for the registered professional nurses of NYC H+H. We want to significantly improve our patients’ and our members’ quality of life through these negotiations.”

Deborah Gatson, RN, East New York D&T Center

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H+H nurses are as good as any other nurses nationwide, and they are entitled to all the benefits that would make them even more efficient nurses.”

Ray Briggs, RN, Coney Island Hospital

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gear up for contract campaign

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As the Membership Chairperson at Harlem Hospital, I meet all the new nurses in the public sector, and they are fired up and concerned about how nurses are represented and where the profession is going.

It’s exciting for me to now be able to join the committee, to be able to have a voice at the negotiating table, representing those nurses with respect and dignity, and fighting for a fair contract.”

Alizia McMyers, RN, Harlem Hospital

Whether nurses can fight for the resources that we need to take care of our patients will determine whether New York City’s public hospital system can actually provide the healthcare that NYC deserves. Staffing is paramount. We need nurses.

The people that depend on NYC H+H for their care deserve this and more.”

Sean Petty, RN, Jacobi Medical Center and NYSNA Southern Regional Director

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There are many facilities in the NYC H+H/Mayorals system, and the nurses have a variety of needs. That’s why we need to come together and discuss our priorities to develop proposals that work for the majority of our members.”

Keysha Morris, Case Manager, Dept. of Correction

What we are looking forward to is an equitable, fair and timely contract that is worthy and comparable to the hard work and often sacrificial time and effort that we the nurses of the NYC H+H/Mayorals give year after year! Despite the obvious shortage of staff and necessary equipment and supplies, we continue to provide highquality care to ALL who present themselves to our doors for service without hesitation.”

Valerie Bowers, RN, Kings County

Continued on page 10

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I’m hoping that we can win better benefits, so we can retain and attract more nurses to the city hospitals and agencies.

Healthcare justice for the Other New York means that everyone deserves equal care. All NYSNA nurses can get involved in helping us reach our goals!”

Yvonne Lam, RN, BSN, MSN, CCM, Woodhull

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New York Nurse january 2019

NYC Care sending 600,000 patients to H+H

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio at announcement of NYC Care, Lincoln Hospital, January 8

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Continued from page 9

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

n January 8, 2019, at Lincoln Hospital, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced NYC’s Guaranteed Health Care Plan, named in short “NYC Care”.

This is a new health coverage option through NYC Health + Hospitals for New Yorkers unable to afford health insurance or are ineligible for health insurance and is a significant step forward in guaranteeing healthcare to all New Yorkers.

NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) will provide the services under NYC Care.

There are an estimated 600,000 New Yorkers without health insurance and too many uninsured New Yorkers are avoiding care when they need it. We know that too many end up seeking care in the ER, do not know how to navigate the healthcare system, or do not know there is a public system where they can seek primary and preventive care.

NYC Care targets two groups for care: Individuals who are not eligible to receive Medicaid or do not have affordable options available to them on the New York Health Exchange.

Individuals who are eligible to receive Medicaid or purchase insurance, but have not enrolled because they don’t think they need coverage, do not think they can afford the plans that are available on the

NYC Care will provide: l

n assigned primary care clinician at one of NYC A Health + Hospitals at more than 70 locations

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omprehensive primary and preventive care C services, such as taking care of your diabetes, as well as age-appropriate screening exams

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ccess to NYC Health + Hospitals’ specialty care A and behavioral health care services

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Access to a 24/7 member service hotline

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Access to affordable prescription benefits

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A dedicated membership card

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welcome packet and education materials that A helps the member understand their benefits and responsibilities under the plan

Exchange, or need help navigating the enrollment or renewal process.

These people will be directed to the City’s Public Option, MetroPlus.

For its part, MetroPlus will adopt new outreach and enrollment assistance strategies and establish new and improved member service options.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, the CEO of NYC Health and Hospital Corporation ”NYC Care will be the largest, most comprehensive health coverage program in the United States.... New York City has a population of 8.6 million, and a large number of people who don’t qualify for insurance. So to me, what you always want to do is produce a system that provides people the care that they deserve.

I’m very excited to be able to do that...

More nurses are part of the plan. We’ll be hiring more nurses as we expand.”

-Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO, NYC H+H

new york city

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january 2019

African American History Month

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e celebrate our very own NYSNA members of African American heritage and their extraordinary contributions to society this February during African American History Month. Our direct contribution is the delivery of quality healthcare and in our activities that support equal access to quality care.

We celebrate our cultural diversity. We also see the historic contributions of African American nurses in the making of this nation, a proud and accomplished history with stories of great heroism.

These stories still do not have their deserved place in the recounting of our nation’s past and we recognize the importance of telling them as part of the history of nursing.

There is yet another dimension to the importance of African American History Month to NYSNA. It is rooted in our connection to and place in the labor movement in the U.S. We recognize with great pride how the organizations of working people fought for civil rights and social justice. Labor has a proud and just place in the annals of African American History.

We can remind New Yorkers and the nation of the contributions of African American nurses and union members to our nation’s history of social progress and diversity.

Prominent African American nurses

The Civil War was a training ground for African American nurses.

Black women born into slavery who became nurses during this time included Sojourner Truth (1791-1883) and Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), both known as abolitionists and the latter for her historic role in the Underground Railroad. Both also took on roles as nurses for soldiers during the Civil War. Susie Baker King Taylor (1848-1912), liberated

by Union troops in 1862, turned to nursing sick and wounded soldiers, as well. She went on to become president of the Woman’s Relief Corps, a veteran’s association carried through to civilian life. She is remembered for this quote from her 1902 memoir: “It seems strange how our aversion to seeing suffering is overcome in

Mary Elizabeth Mahoney

war, how we are able to see the most sickening sights… with feelings only of sympathy and pity.”

Mary Elizabeth Mahoney (18451926) was the first black women to work as a professionally trained nurse in the U.S. She graduated from the nursing program of the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1905. Mahoney was joined by Adah B. Thoms (1870-1943) and Martha Franklin, RN (1870-1968) in founding the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in 1908. Franklin was renowned as a crusader for the integration of black nurses. Thoms spent 18 years as assistant superintendent of nurses and acting director of Lincoln Hospital, but was denied the directorship due to her race. Still, the number of African American nurses doubled between 1910-1930.

In 1900, Jesse Sleet Scales became the nation’s first black public health nurse. From tuberculosis in New York City’s African American community to childbirth, chicken pox, heart disease and cancer, her crusading efforts expanded the breadth of public health for the black population.

African American nurses advance

Born in Barbados, Mabel Keaton Staupers (1890-1989) was a major force in battling tuberculosis, a scourge on the black community.

She became executive secretary of the Harlem Tuberculosis Committee. During World War II, Staupers campaigned to improve the status of African American nurses, meeting with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended racial enlistment restrictions for Army nurses.

Brig. Gen. Hazel JohnsonBrown, RN, PhD (1928-2011), joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1955 and went on to oversee nursing operations at hundreds of Army medical centers, community hospitals and clinics. The daughter of a tomato grower, Brown was originally rejected for nursing school because of her race.

It is said that school authorities informed her, “We’ve never had a black person in our program and we never will.” Brown was the first black woman to become a general in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Booker T. Washington established a two-year nursing program at Tuskegee University in Alabama in 1892. In 1948, the School of Nursing’s new dean, Lillian Holland Harvey, RN, EdD (1912-1950), started Tuskegee University’s baccalaureate nursing program. Its first graduating class took their degrees in 1953.

Philadelphia’s Mercy Hospital Nursing Staff, circa 1940s

Ending health disparities

Research is beginning to show that chronic stress from encountering discrimination affects the health of black women of all economic groups — even athletic stars like Ms. Williams. This can be compounded by poor access to pre- and postnatal care, inadequate medical treatment in the years preceding childbirth and the challenge of getting healthcare professionals to take their selfassessments seriously. There is much work to do to achieve equal access to quality care and reduce disparities in health outcomes.

“We have seen some remarkable improvements in death rates for the black population in the past 17 years,” wrote Leandris Liburd, PhD, MPH, MA, associate director of CDC’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity. “Important gaps are narrowing….

However, we still have a long way to go. Early interventions can lead to longer, healthier lives. In particular, diagnosing and treating the leading diseases that cause death at earlier stages is an important step for saving lives.” NYSNA nurses have made historic contributions to community health and will continue to do so into the future.

Hazel Johnson-Brown

NEW YORK NURSE January 2019

131 West 33rd Street, 4th Floor New York, NY 10001 6 NYC

INSIDE

Nurses deserve respect, p. 3

Over 150 staff illnesses, p. 6

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