NYS Ushers in Strongest Safe

NYS Ushers in Strongest Safe Staffing Laws in the Land

Nursing home members stand ready to enforce them.

The New Year ushers in a new era for

nursing homes in New York State, as groundbreaking laws that 1199ers lobbied hard for last April finally come into force. The long-overdue legislation—which takes effect on January 1—is the strongest in the country, and it will require owners to devote significantly more money to staffing.

“These new regulations mean I will be able to spend more quality time with my residents,” says Beverly Miller, a CNA at Rosewood Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Rensselaer, NY, outside of Albany. “I have between 12 and 15 people I’m looking after at the moment. Right now, I can only give them a quick wash, get them up and get them dressed. There is no way I have the time to give them the care they deserve.”

“America is supposed to be the greatest country, but the way we treat our elderly in nursing homes. . .we need to do better,” adds Miller.

Passed by the New York State legislature in April, the new laws

“If the law is followed, I’ll have the time to treat my residents with dignity and respect they deserve as they transition.”

– Beverly Miller, CNA at Rosewood Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Rensselaer, NY

require nursing home owners to spend 70 percent of their revenue on direct resident care, with 40 percent of that amount spent on staff that work directly with residents. 1199ers’ activism during the “Invest in Quality Care” campaign played a leading role in getting the new state laws passed.

Yvette Dubois, a Recreational Leader at Pinnacle Multicare Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in the Bronx, said she wants to make sure the laws will put an end to chronic staff shortages that can mean one nurse having to care for more than a dozen patients.

“When staff is that short, no one can really care for the patients,” Dubois said. “You do rounds and just keep watch, but you can’t really care for people—and care [is what motivates us] to do this work.”

1199 members were on the front

lines as COVID swept through the state’s nursing homes before there was a treatment regimen or vaccines. Working in spite of well-founded fears was something dedicated members did because they knew the people in their care needed them. “We had no [federal] guidelines or state guidelines to follow,” Miller recalled. “That was the big issue: their not telling us the correct information.” For instance, Miller recalls that personal protective equipment like masks were available, but with no guidelines on how to use them “we were saving masks in brown bags and using them the next day, if not longer.” She also says, “We were not fitted for masks for a long time, and that really became an issue when we had to take sick people from hospitals into the nursing homes.”

Miller, who gave a Zoom testimony when NYS representatives were still weighing the new laws, says she now expects to see more staff hiring, freeing her to provide better quality care to residents. “If the law is followed, I won’t have so many people to take care of. I’ll have time to treat them with dignity and respect they deserve as they transition,” she says.

Dubois, who has worked in the Pinnacle facility for more than 20 years—her father, Cornell, died there when it was known as The Hebrew Home—worries that owners will find a way around the new laws and chronic staffing shortages will continue endangering patient care. “All they have been doing is fixing up the facility, improving the dialysis center and the dementia ward,” Dubois said. “They’re fixing windows. But we’re still short staffed, because no one wants to work for people who are insensitive to resident care.”

Dubois said staff was amazed at

the five-star treatment, including manicures, massages and chefprepared meals on the premises, which the mother of a home executive received while she was housed there in 2020. Yet staffing is so short at times that one CNA must care for more than a dozen of patients at a time.

“The intent of the law is to guarantee that nursing home operators spend what is required to provide quality direct patient care,” said Milly Silva, 1199 Executive Vice President for the Nursing Home Division. “If they don’t meet the standards set in the law, they will be expected to shift spending to staffing and resident care. We will closely monitor that spending to ensure that money is actually invested in the workforce and resident care—and that accounting tricks aren’t being used to meet the standards.”

Dubois adds: “It is all about the money for these people. It’s negligence. And who has to pay for that negligence—the staff who really want to take care of their patients. We’re not prepared to do it anymore.”

 Members rally at the Crown Heights nursing home, formerly known as Marcus Garvey in Brooklyn in support of the Invest in Quality Care campaign.

 Yvette Dubois, a Recreational Leader at Pinnacle Multicare Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in the Bronx.

 Beverly Miller, a CNA at Rosewood Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Rensselaer, NY, outside Albany.