In a win for the New York State Nurses Association, an arbitrator has fined Mount Sinai Hospital $127,000 for persistently understaffing its neonatal intensive care unit. Union nurses won stricter staff ratios and enforcement measures after a three-day strike in January. The ruling is the first of its kind.
ERIN HOGAN; text (646) 322-6616 to set up interviews
Hogan is a nurse in the emergency department at Mount Sinai Hospital and a union delegate.
Hogan told the Institute for Public Accuracy that the ruling was an “amazing win… The nurses won arbitration despite [the hospital’s] flat-out lies, and Sinai was fined $127,000 to be distributed to the nurses who worked short,” ie. on shifts that were understaffed. “Mount Sinai fought hard to try to make it look like we were falsifying our data. But NYSNA nurses, and in this case the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit], fought even harder.”
Hogan hopes that “the fine will encourage other units” besides the NICU to ensure they have adequate staffing and encourage other hospitals and units to fight management. In the emergency department, where Hogan is stationed, “it’s been so busy that it’s difficult to even find the time to collect the data” on staff ratios. In the Emergency Department, “conditions are so awful and it’s so busy that many nurses say that they don’t have the time to collect the data.”