Solidarity with Coler-Goldwater Nurses
March 19, 2009
For more than half a century the HHC Coler-Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island has played an important role in New York City’s health care system providing HIV and AIDS care, geriatric care, primary care, rehabilitation services, and 24-hour long-term care to children and adults with chronic and multiple disabilities. The work done at Coler and Goldwater requires having the kind of dedicated staff that goes that extra mile and the nurses that work there exemplify that compassionate professionalism.
We all know that this is a particularly tough budget year and that the proposed Executive budget now before the legislature includes measures that will impact HHC hospitals, including Coler-Goldwater. It would be dishonest to say that there will not be cuts to health care when a final budget is passed. But in Albany, I am working to ensure that public hospitals like the one I represent on Roosevelt Island get the funding they need to continue to fulfill their missions.
Today the New York State Nurses Association held a protest in front of both the Coler and Goldwater hospitals, at which Council Member Jessica Lappin and I joined the nurses in their opposition to management’s decision to force them to move to a five-day schedule, instead of continuing to offer a choice between a five-day and four-day schedule. This decision does not serve the long-term interests of the hospital and it is unfair to its staff. Two years ago, introducing the option of a four-day week attracted many new nurses to Coler-Goldwater despite the state’s nursing shortage. To reverse this labor policy will undoubtedly drive many of these nurses away from the hospital. This is especially true during a hiring freeze and will result in an unacceptable situation for both staff and patients.
It is time to break the old habits of labor and management butting heads; we know that this will only worsen our problems. Instead, we must endeavor to work together. I implore hospital management to come to the table and work with its nurses to find better solutions to the problems that are facing Coler and Goldwater.
You can download my full statement from today’s vigil in the Publications Section of my website.
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