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Union nurses testify to Assembly committees June 8, 2006
Rallies can get results. After appearing en masse in May at the Capitol, calling loudly for improvements in the working conditions of nurses, hospital nurses from New York State United Teachers were tapped to speak at a state Assembly public hearing on staffing shortages and mandatory overtime. Susan John, D-Rochester, chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Labor, and Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Health, hosted the joint hearing last month. "If you regulate staff-patient ratios, there's no need for mandatory overtime, except in case of emergencies," said Renee Gestone-Setteducato, a nurse at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and a member of NYSUT's Health Care Professionals Council. "Mandating and legalizing minimal nurse-patient ratios provides patient and nurse satisfaction and safety." This environment, in turn, would bring more nurses back into the field. "The average length of stay for a new nurse is five years," she said. "They can't handle it because of the staffing. Hospitals use mandatory overtime to fill planned vacancies." She also said, based on NYSUT research, as many as 65,000 registered nurses have left the job in New York, and better working conditions would bring some of them back. Unified position While some hospitals stipulate no mandatory overtime in contracts with nurses, there needs to be a unified position that takes the form of a law, said Alan Lubin, executive vice president of NYSUT, because not all hospitals follow this safe practice. Non-union hospitals usually have few restrictions on overtime, he said. "There are no statewide standards," Lubin said. Using unscheduled, mandatory overtime to make up for personnel shortages causes many RNs to leave the profession or leave areas of practice, according to the Assembly committee chairpeople. "Understaffing has resulted in nurses working longer hours and caring for sicker, needier patients and in greater need for suitable rest." Gestone-Setteducato, a member of the NYSUT-affiliated United Federation of Teachers, is also chapter chairwoman for Lutheran Medical Center, where she has logged 34 years of bedside nursing. She said her hospital has established ratios and therefore, "There is no mandatory overtime at our hospital." She was one of hundreds of nurses from NYSUT, the Public Employees Federation, New York State Nurses Association and SEIU Local 1199 who joined forces for the May rally in Albany. — Liza Frenette |
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