“Facing a disastrous lack of preparation by hospital management, in conditions that undercut safe patient care and threaten harm to nurses and other hospital staff,” nurses of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) are threatening to strike at Albany Medical Center on Dec. 1 to demand critical improvements in staffing and infection control standards, according to a press release sent by NYSNA Friday morning.
According to NYSNA, the nurses have been negotiating a contract for two years, working through the first wave of the coronavirus. With another surge arriving, nurses are refusing to accept understaffing and the lack of personal professional equipment (PPE).
The Albany Medical Center strike announcement comes on the same day that nurses at Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital put out their announcement of a two-day strike over poor working conditions and the imminent threat of the next wave of COVID-19.
“We are not walking out. We are being forced out,” said Lenore Granich, a nurse with Albany Medical Center and a member of the NYSNA’s negotiating committee with Albany Med. “(Albany Med) is not and has not listened to us. COVID-19 is back with a vengeance and our staffing is at critical mass, PPE – especially N95s — are being reused multiple times and now our staff members are becoming infected. These conditions put us and our patients at risk. When will enough be enough?”
According to NYSNA, hundreds of hospital staff – including over 200 nurses – have left AMC due to hospital conditions in what one nurse called a “hospital coming apart at the seams.”
CivMix has reached out to Albany Med for comment.
