COVID Used As Excuse To Understaff Hospitals: Park Slope Nurses

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Coronavirus hospitalizations dwindled this week to the lowest levels seen for months, including in Brooklyn.

But nurses in Park Slope say staffing shortages brought on by the height of the pandemic are anything but waning.

"It's not the pandemic anymore," Diane Bonet, a pediatric nurse at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, said Tuesday. "Unsafe staffing is a problem throughout the hospital — this is the worst I've seen it in 20 years here at Methodist."

Bonet was among nurses with the New York State Nurses Association union who gathered outside the Park Slope hospital on Tuesday to join a statewide call to pass the Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act, which would mandate certain levels of staffing at hospitals and nursing homes.

The call comes after more than 100 nurses left Brooklyn Methodist, a NewYork-Presbyterian hospital, in the last few months with barely any new hires, nurses say.

For Bonet, the shortages have meant switching to a new specialty with little to no training. Her pediatric unit was shut down amid the pandemic and its nurses have been instead caring for adult patients, including those with coronavirus.

"They use the pandemic as an excuse to throw nurses into new specialties," she said. "All I know is that I want to give the best quality care I can to my patients, and I can't do it if I don't have the proper tools and I don't have the proper training."

Under the safe staffing act, nurses would be able to refuse work assignments outside their abilities, and would have recourse if they are retaliated against for doing so, according to the legislation.

Hospital officials — including the Greater New York Hospital Association, which Methodist falls under — contend the legislation's mandates could compromise the flexibility hospitals need to make real-time patient care decisions or respond to emergencies, like the pandemic.

A study of the safe staffing bill found it would require New York hospitals to hire nearly 25,000 more nurses and add upwards of $1.8 billion each year to their budgets.

But nurses say the legislation seems the only way to ensure hospital officials correct the shortages. Nurses have been asking Methodist for a hiring plan since before the pandemic, infection control nurse Al Crispino said.

As coronavirus rates dip, now should be the time to address staffing problems before any potential new waves, he said.

"We want to know what is going on," Crispino said. "Last year our nurses worked very hard through all of the pandemic, now we have ample time to prepare."

When asked about the specific shortages at Methodist, a hospital spokesperson sent Patch the following statement:

"We greatly value our skilled and dedicated nurses who have done so much for our patients and the community during this pandemic and we will continue to support them. Despite unprecedented challenges, our heroic clinical teams continue to provide the safe and exceptional care NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital is known for."