Unionized nurses at Albany Medical Center held a town hall this week, focused on what they say is understaffing at the hospital.
New York State Nurses Association president Nancy Hagans chided the hospital, saying nurses who three years ago were called heroes, are today "being treated as zeroes." "Albany Medical Center is not listening to its hard work and frontline nurses when it comes to patient safety," said Hagans. New York state laws are meant to ensure quality care. As a major academic medical center for the capital region and beyond. They need to invest and care for community and put patients before profit."
NYSNA Strategic Researcher Sivan Rosenthal says Albany Med has the largest share of beds among Capital Region hospitals and is the sole level one trauma center from Westchester to the Canadian border.
Rosenthal says the nurses have repeatedly submitted complaints to the Department of Health that Albany Med is not following state mandated guidelines by refusing to provide break coverage and ignoring the recommended two patients to one nurse ratio, consistently running at three or four patients to one nurse.
"One of the results of this is that they have some of the worst patient outcomes in the state," Rosenthal said. "There are several organizations that measure this one of them is LeapFrog. The hospital scored a D on the LeapFrog Patient Safety score every year, since 2020. And they had the worst score nationally on death from preventable serious complications. And this relates to outcomes from surgeries in 2023."
Rosenthal also crictized Albany Med's spending policies. "They're not investing enough in patient care in order to have safe patient outcomes. But they are investing in other things. They're spending money on financial instruments, they're putting money in foreign accounts that aren't subject to taxation, and they're paying high executive salaries. So this is just one accounting of some of the places that they have money stored away,” said Rosenthal.
Jennifer Bejo has been an Intensive Care Unit nurse at Albany Medical Center for 18 years. She is also president of NYSNA's labor bargaining unit there. She says staffing has been a problem dating back to before the COVID pandemic, with the hospital continuing to ask nurses to work extra hours with no lunch breaks.
"We need them to invest in us, the nurses, the same money, they invest in their high executive salaries, the same money they invest in bringing in and compensating agency travel nurses at a much higher rate that we make," Bejo said. "Albany Med needs to invest in recruitment and retention programs for nurses who are committed to this community and are committed to stay at the bedside. They need to offer nurses a reason to stay in the hospital long term. We need Albany Med to step up and invest in our community, make us feel valued and appreciated. We are not asking for a lot. We don't want to feel that our commitment and our sacrifice has been forgotten. We are tired of being disregarded."
A spokesman for Albany Med replied to a request for comment via email, praising the nurses and the care they provide, writing: "Hospitals across the nation are facing systemic challenges that include difficulty maintaining staffing levels. Albany Medical Center is not an exception, and we believe working together with our nurses is the best way to address these challenges."
Albany Med and the New York State Nurses Association soon will begin negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, which the hospital says it intends to "pursue respectfully and collegially."
A spokesperson says the state Department of Health cannot comment on the status of an ongoing investigation.
