14 The QUEE NS Courier • SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com Health care workers picket for better wages By Suzanne Monteverdi smonteverdi@qns.com/@smont76 Dozens of registered nurses, therapists and clerical workers took to the picket line outside of St. Mary’s Hospital for Children in Bayside to protest current wages, benefits and staffing concerns. “We’re committed to our organization and we really, really would love to stay here,” said Cynthia McDonald, a registered nurse at the hospital for seven years. “We’re committed to the children we take care of. But the people who are working here cannot afford to stay.” Members of United Healthcare Workers East — the largest health care workers union in the nation — marched outside chanting phrases such as “Shame on you, St. Mary’s Hospital” and “We care for children every day” to protest the alleged foot dragging of hospital management in presenting an improved contract to workers. McDonald said that the lack of adequate compensation makes for high employee turnover, forcing the hospital to hire employees with less experience. “When we have new hires, they don’t stay, because there’s no incentive to stay; the workload is heavy and they get burnt out and they go on to another facility that offers better benefits,” McDonald said. Colleague Brian Connolly, a physical therapist at the hospital for 10 years, echoed this sentiment. “It’s been a long time since people have been given fair raises. We haven’t had a cost of living raise in some time,” he said. “I think not having more than one person in each discipline — and that’s only physical therapy and occupational therapy — with more than 3 to 5 years of experience is a tell-tale that people aren’t sticking around or staying long.” “We’re not asking for expense accounts; we’re not asking for Cadillacs,” McDonald continued. “We’re asking for benefits so that we can take care of our families and we can continue to take care of the Photo: Suzanne Monteverdi/THE COURIER children here that we really, really love to take care of.” St. Mary’s Hospital for Children is a not-for-profit healthcare facility that provides intensive rehabilitation, specialized care and education to children with special needs and life-limiting conditions. The Courier reached out to St. Mary’s Hospital for Children for comment and is awaiting a response. Astoria: Meet the new beat officers assigned to your streets By Angela Matua amatua@qns.com/@AngelaMatua As part of a new initiative by the NYPD, the 114th Precinct will change the way they dispatch officers to the neighborhood. Starting Oct. 3, the precinct will be broken up into four sectors instead of 13. Each sector will have two designated neighborhood coordination officers (NCOs) who will engage the community and identify recurring problems in specific patrol areas. According to Captain Peter Fortune, the commanding officer of the 114th Precinct, the NYPD will be pulling officers from specialized units such as anti-crime, traffic and domestic violence and assigning them to specific sectors to foster relationships with community members. These NCOs will not answer 911 calls – this responsibility will be given exclusively to eight steady sector officers, who will also be assigned to the same sector every day – but will patrol the same streets to identify crime patterns and address quality-of-life issues. The officers will also patrol the areas on bicycle and foot so that they are not confined to vehicles all day. “We asked these sector cars to interact with the community,” Fortune said. “The problem is we never gave them time to interact with the community. They ran from job to job, 911 call to 911 call. They never had the time or the opportunity to really get to know who they were serving.” Previously, the precinct would assign half of the officers to specialized units and half to answer 911 calls. Now, officers will be assigned to specialized units, eight officers will only answer 911 calls and spend some time patrolling the neighborhood and the NCOs will exclusively interact with community members in their designated sectors. “The NCOs have been handpicked by me,” Fortune said. “They’re well-rounded people. They know how to talk to people. They’re problem solvers. We’ve sent them to some really great training.” Issues with graffiti, parking, panhandling and other quality-of-life issues will now be reported to NCOs and taken back to the 114th Precinct for a coordinated solution. According to the NYPD’s website, the NCOs have received training in mediation, conflict resolution, public speaking, crime analysis, connecting residents with social-service resources and special operations functions such as crime prevention, domestic violence and policing in the public housing developments. This program has been implemented in other precincts across the city and according to Fortune, it has led to a decrease in violence and shootings and an increase in community interaction. The sectors and officers assigned to them are as follows: Sector A from Astoria Boulevard South to 37th Avenue and Steinway Street to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway will be patrolled by Officers Mariusz Krala and Thomas Lewandowski. They can be reached at mariusz.krala@ nypd.org and thomas.lewandowski@ nypd.org. Sector B encompasses 19th Avenue to Astoria Boulevard North, 20th Avenue to Hoyt Avenue North and Shore Boulevard to 81st Street. Officers Apostolos Masoudridis and Monique Holly will patrol the area. They can be reached at apostolos.masoudridis@ nypd.org and monique.holly@ nypd.org. Sector C from Astoria Boulevard South to Northern Boulevard, Hoyt Avenue South to Northern Boulevard and the east side of Steinway Street to 21st Street will be patrolled by Officers Borys Bedoya and Carl Ferraro. They can be reached at borys.bedoya@nypd. org and carl.ferraro@nypd.org. Sector D will include Astoria Park South to Queens Plaza North and the west side of 21st Street to Main Street. Officers Keith Matthes and Joseph Esposito will patrol the area. They can be reached at keith. matthes@nypd.org and joseph. esposito@nypd.org. Photo: Angela Matua/QNS
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