3 BRONX WEEKLY April 26, 2020 www.BXTimes.com
NYS Nurses Association fi les lawsuit against Montefi ore
BY JASON COHEN
Sick and tired of not
having the proper personal
protective equipment (PPE)
and being short on staff
while battling COVID-19,
city nurses took legal action
this week.
On April 20, the New
York State Nurses Association
fi led three lawsuits
against the state and two
against hospitals systems,
one of which is Montefi ore
Medical Center.
The NYNA has 42,000
nurses, including 3,000 at
Montefi ore. The lawsuit
seeks to address severe
workplace hazards that
are causing or are likely to
cause a nurse’s death or serious
physical harm.
“Registered nurses have
high risk, physically demanding
jobs where they
routinely confront workplace
violence, are obligated
to lift heavy patients
and commonly experience
other physical stressors,”
the lawsuit states. “Further,
RNs often face occupational
exposure to serious
infectious diseases, such
as tuberculosis and infl uenza.
Because of these diffi
cult working conditions,
even prior to the COVID-19
pandemic, nursing had one
of the highest rates of occupational
injury and illness
of any profession.”
Plagued by the serious
illness and, in some instances,
death, the nurses
on the front line of the
COVID-19 pandemic are
facing, NYSNA is seeking
a reverse Boys Markets
injunction to compel
Montefi ore to immediately
take steps required to protect
the nurses’ health and
safety pending the outcome
of the arbitration.
Last week, NYSNA initiated
a grievance under
the parties’ collective bargaining
agreement (CBA)
challenging the hospital’s
widespread and systemic
failure during the
COVID-19 pandemic to
“take steps necessary to
assure employee health
and safety” as required under
the CBA.
By the time that the
grievance will be heard at
arbitration and an award
is issued, it will be too late
to fi x the damage caused
by the hospital’s persistent
Montefi ore nurses protest conditions Photo courtesy of NYSNA
failure to comply with its
contractual obligations,
particularly the serious
illnesses that the nurses,
their patients and families
have already suffered.
As of April 21, there
have been approximately
134,874 confi rmed cases in
New York City and 9,562
deaths, according to city
data.
Nurses caring for
COVID-19 patients, many
of whom have a persistent
and aggressive cough,
are regularly exposed to
aerosolized droplets. Furthermore,
during medical
procedures such as intubations,
when COVID-19
patients are put on a ventilator
to assist in breathing,
the number of aerosolized
droplets and the
risk to RNs signifi cantly
increases. Airborne particles
are smaller and drier,
so they travel farther and
stay in the air longer. Without
proper ventilation, the
air itself in a COVID-19
hospital unit can become
contaminated and deadly.
State-wide, at least
eight nurses have died due
to COVID-19 contracted at
work and at least 84 have
been hospitalized with lifethreatening
COVID symptoms.
Approximately 72
percent of NYSNA’s members
have been exposed to
COVID-19 at work. Even
though testing has been
only sporadically available
for non-hospitalized
nurses, 954 nurses already
have tested positive, including
at least 150 at Montefi
ore.
NYSNA estimates that
at least another 150 nurses
at Montefi ore could test
positive for COVID-19 unless
the hospital takes action
to assure their health
and safety.
Since January, NYSNA
has attempted to work with
the hospital to address the
COVID-19 crisis by implementing
basic safety measures
for the nurses and
their patients. But, their
efforts have been ignored.
“Montefi ore has become
a major center for treating
COVID-19 and suspected
COVID 19 patients,” the
lawsuit states. “Right now,
the hospital is like a war
zone. The RNs there are
treating large numbers of
very sick and frightened
patients, and are doing so
with inadequate and often
ill-fi tting equipment, often
in rooms that have not
been properly converted
to deal with COVID-19 patients,
often working while
they are sick because they
have been forced back to
work too early, often in
practice areas where they
have never been trained,
and generally without adequate
testing to ensure
they are fi t to work without
infecting others.”
For front line health
care workers like the Montefi
ore nurses, precautions
must include the provision
of adequate protective
masks, such as N95s, that
are not improperly stored
and reused day after day,
and the provision of nonpermeable
gowns and other
covering, both in suffi cient
numbers so that they may
be changed when needed.
It also includes a proper
space to take the gowns off
so that disease-free areas
in the hospital do not become
contaminated, and
so that disease-infected air
does not linger.
Finally, the precautions
must include allowing
nurses to take guaranteed
leave so that they are not
forced to work while sick
with COVID symptoms
and coronavirus testing
on demand so they do not
come back to work too soon
and infect their co-workers
and patients.
“NYSNA brings this
lawsuit because Montefi ore
has rejected the union’s repeated
efforts to work with
the hospital to lessen the
risks posed by COVID-19
so that more New Yorkers
will not die needlessly—be
they the Montefi ore nurses
themselves, the patients
they care for, the doctors
and other medical personnel
with whom they work,
the families they come
home to, or the people
whose paths they cross
at the grocery store, the
pharmacy and on public
transportation while traveling
to and from work,”
the lawsuit says. “Nurses,
as unwitting carriers, may
pass the disease to someone
who, because of age, a
compromised immune system,
or bad luck, suffers
serious or even fatal consequences.”
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