What you should know
- More than 100 nurses demonstrated outside the New York-Presbyterian hospital Wednesday morning to draw attention to what they say is a serious shortage of nurses.
- Dozens of nurses say the current shortage is causing long hours and an inability to properly care for their patients.
- The nurses say the stress level is leading to burnout, which is causing some nurses to leave.
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NEW YORK – More than 100 nurses rallied outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital Wednesday morning to draw attention to what they say is a serious nursing shortage.
Dozens of nurses say the current shortage is causing long hours and an inability to properly care for their patients.
“We took an oath in nursing school that we were going to do the right thing for patients,” said Aretha Morgan, pediatric emergency nurse. “And we cannot do the right thing because we are not enough to do the right thing.”
The nurses say the stress level is leading to burnout, which is causing some nurses to leave.
“We cannot allow our nurses to go to other institutions when we have trained them to care for our patients within this community,” said Noemi DeJesus-Aponte, a delivery nurse.
In six weeks, a state health care personnel law will take effect. Although the nurses acknowledge that it will help with transparency of staffing levels, they say it will not force hospitals to hire more nurses, which is what they want.
“We will have a committee with the administration where we will sit down and examine unit by unit and develop a clinical staffing plan. Those plans will not be enforceable under the law until 2023,” said the executive director of the New State Nurses Association. York, Pat Kane.
Over the next four weeks, nurses will meet at different hospitals to continue to draw attention to the shortage.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital provided our sister network News 4 New York with a comment on Wednesday morning saying that they are currently going through unprecedented circumstances due to the pandemic and that they want to try to hire skilled and caring nurses.
The full statement reads: “As we continue to navigate unprecedented challenges associated with the pandemic, the well-being and safety of our patients and the community is always our top priority. We value our dedicated nurses and their contributions to the exceptional care we provide every day, which is reflected in the recognition our hospital has received for clinical excellence and outstanding patient outcomes. Despite the national nurse shortage, we are continually attracting and adding trained and caring nurses to our incredible healthcare teams. “
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